Katrina

When the water first began to pool,

creeping like sweat on a child's back,

it went unnoticed

until it breached the crack of light below our front door

and cast it, momentarily shattered,

so it painted the kitchen with

amorphous reds and blues.

Then mama began to scream.

     The photographs! The money! We have to go, we have to go!

Go Go Go Go Go

For the two hours we went

we were shown the purest forms of ourselves

stacked precariously (and mostly wet)

on our respective beds.

This was our judgement day.

The clouds collected and collided

whipped by sentient winds 

(soldiers of the rapture).

How could I be afraid?

I lifted the cross to my lips and pretended to pray

but mama said God had a different plan

The Ark! (our minivan)

my heart warmed despite the splitting cold 

that seeped into my feet's bones

from water now three inches high and well above my ankles

When we finally set our collected belongings

upon the dining room table

I thought they were so small,

that we are all so small

in the eye of a storm.

I said

   But mama, we can't fit all the animals in the car

She didn't even smile,

the expression was fragmented;

a moving-box trembling slightly in her frozen hands.

She perched like a predator on the wrong side of the food chain,

eyes glued to the window. 

In my head I heard choirs singing

saw their mouths open in slow motion,

saliva raining from their lips,

They sang of salvation and sacrifice

as our minivan drifted by in brackish water