we have been dry for years
our skin has grown cracks
deep fissures
unhealing and unending

our bodies resembling the desert
that gave birth to us
that nurtured us
gave us her fruit,
her sparse green,
her shallow,
disappearing pools

but still
our throats beg
for water,
for a drop
of mercy from the sky -

we croak and cry and beg
with chests heaving,
tears the only mercy to come
for petrichor lost

we have been dry
for years
no mercy
no end