I was doing my Spanish homework when I found out.

I have to

watch news articles in Spanish but

I wasn’t really listening until I heard

mil in the death count,

Spanish for one thousand

except it was more,

it was more than a thousand

people torn out of their bodies in a torrential

instant of earth-draining wind.

It was

it is

seiscientos sesenta mil vidas

reduced to rubble in the driving rain.

The video showed the survivors

just another part of the flotsam of the storm

clustered,

watching their dead rot.

A woman in the video

with red eyes haunted

with saltwater

said

“We are so hungry and thirsty.

If you have any water or food,

maybe

you can give us.”

and the fact that she said maybe

makes me wonder what other humble humans lay

buried

under a foot of mud.