Concatenation

In Manila, the poor are rattling 
mansion gates and pelting glass 
windows with balls of mud. 

When floodwaters rise, they rise
with the force of imperfect contracts—
Would you build a dike lined with straw

and filched copper wires? Would you 
build an empire with melted chains from 
designer bags? Another hurricane is brewing 

off the coast. Streets turn into canals 
and their currents stir salt into bile, 
bile into spite into storms of hatred.