Cruelty Inconspicuous

They're everywhere this morning
The numbers seem absurd
So many bodies lying there
Littered is the word

In the dark and early light
Their flesh darkened as it dried
Wriggling, struggling, striving
They tried to live but died

'Twas a great calamity
The flood that did descend
So many simple innocents
The angels did attend

Clear and wet and sinister
The raindrops downward rode
Conspiring, connecting, and collecting
Into cold, dark shapes that flowed

The water gushed and rushed and pushed
And plunged into their homes
It filled up all the passages
And offered splashy tomes

Water finds what water finds
Nowhere could they hide
Unwilling but so ill-prepared
They were lifted on the tide

The wetness 'round them seethed
Gurgling as it surged
And plunged them into open space
To of their lives be purged

They did not drown
They did not freeze
'Twas violence that killed them
Thoughtlessly and needlessly and with such evil ease

They fought to find their way to safety
But all they found was slaughter
Hard surfaces came crashing down
On living things much softer

Rubber soles and concrete walks
Made the vice that squeezed their lives
Right out of them to somewhere else
Surer than could sharp knives

So next time it rains be carefuller
For when the water churns
The steps you tread might end the times
Of gallant angleworms