Blessing The skin cracks like a pod. There never is enough water. Imagine the drip of it, the small splash, echo in a tin mug, the voice of a kindly god. Sometimes, the sudden rush of fortune. The municipal pipe bursts, silver crashes to the ground and the flow has found a roar of tongues. From the huts, a congregation : every man woman child for streets around butts in, with pots, brass, copper, aluminium, plastic buckets, frantic hands, and naked children screaming in the liquid sun, their highlights polished to perfection, flashing light, as the blessing sings over their small bones.