AntiDeLuvian

Dog days waxlong,

Lamed ducks shuffle,

Calendars’pages flipping like parties—

Likebeach weddings,

Vowsmade, breaking like tides,

Floppingin sand-drenched slides,

Seekingand basking

In oases

Of shade          

 From the press of red heat.

Canicular

Coronas flare,

Weatheraccretes to a warming climate—

                Boiling the seas,

                Baking gulfs’ shallow shelves,

                Foresaking jetties’ sands,

                                On shiftingshores

                                Sea-walled:

Nearlyhigh-red enough.

Orange tanssprayed on with forty-seven SPF.

White-hot hospiced,

Hall-mazedoval,

Comforted infamiliarity—

                Hope, a rally,

                Looking the other way,

                Glad-handing sycophants’

                                Facts, screeds, headlines

                                Ignored,

                Fingers waving red flags.

Warnings up-raised,

Categorized,

Sand-baggingand taking inventories,

                For insurance,

                For memories’ sake,

                Just-in-casing again,

                                Watching fairskies:

                                Waiting,

                Disaster looms, red-starred.

Yellowlivers expose jaundiced tempers.

Breezes give to

Gusts, thenbring gales:

Courses changeprognostications—change—course:

                Will she, will she,

                Make a run for the coast:

                Twirl her periwinkle skirt forus,

                                Spin, Craze-grazeus:

                                Remain strong,

                Bringing off the red waves.

Then came the sprinkling.

Then came the rain.

Then came theshowers.

Then came the tsunami.

                Creeping from the Bay acrossroads,

                Filling ditches and canals,

                Overtaking yards,

                                Sweeping overthe lawn

                                And crossing theprecipice,

                                                Alas.

Then came thedeluge.

Then came wishes’shattered promises.

                Broken as soon as they werespoken,

                Watched, warned, fulfilled andreal:

                                Disappointing,

                                Evacuating

                                Failed hopes:

                                We knew what wewere doing.

Then came the breech

Fromall directions:

                Feckless.

Doors andwindows gave

Wayfrom each crevice,

Bubbling up

Fromthe pipes beneath:

Gurgles andslurps.

Webailed and we pumped.

The tide-surgewon

                And we, wet-kneed, failed,

                                                Alas.

First storm glanced,passed,

As was her want,

Tide extrudingas if with bambooed straw,

                Draining last draughts:

                Leaving loss in her wake,

                A briny coating all:

                                Muddied linens

                                Salt-brack’d:

                Red-rusting, in and out.

Green withthe envy of a child’s impatient exuberance.

Tide sub-ebbing,

On Hydra’sback:

Pumped ditchesand canals and knolls exposed.

                Little survives:

                Sunflowers, Peonies,

                Fruit trees denuded:

                                Beach-sandcovered,

                                Settled

Along red-tidedways.

Work commences,

In come thetroops,

Pulling outsoaked walls to the bare pine studs.

                Yanking up planks,

                Daring a great drying out,

                Fighting mold against time:

                                Choking, gasping

                                For breath,

                Scrubbing wet floors and spores.

Second stormslams

Terror atop

Inauguration ofstinging defeat.

                A new deluge,

                Unrepentant tempest.

                What survived has toppled,

                                Wind-strewn, beatdown

                                Again:

                Destruction: red redder.

Blue-marbledin the hottest flames of self-immolation.

Returns return,

Back home again,

Postevacuations.

                Supervising

                The steady rebuilding-

                The not-so-steady pace:

                                Va, Vamonos,

                                Let’s go,

                Estoyviendo rojo.

Then came the con-men

                Disguised as saviors:

                Systems dismantlers,

                As if by spite:

                                Structuresfurther softened.

Then came the grifters:

                The charlatans and carpetbaggers,

                Gouging and prodding.

Then came the rawpredation:

                Making enterprise from disaster,

                                Fixing whatwasn’t even broke,

                                Breaking whatwas already fixed.

                Costs inflated by desperation:

New walls,

New windows,

New doors,

                                                Insideand out,

New plumbing,

New roof,

                A fight against time:

                A fight against a new season,

New paint,

Gilding chrome,

                Gilding fixtures,

                                Gilding karats like buck teeth,

New floors,

New electric and air andinsulation.

Then came the palmettoroaches,

                Moving into open cavities.

Then came therats,

                Thriving in street-side piles ofdebris

                In-marching aggressively wheredoors were

 Askew and ajar,

                Sheltering, multiplying.

Then came theflies

Whenthe rats died,

                And then the bugs, then the rats,then the flies again,

                                Mosquitoes ever-present,

                In a loop, recurrent.

Then came the fellowrefugees,

                The neighbors and friends

                From down the way,

                                Reeling fromtheir own losses,

                Escaping their own horrors,

                                With ice andcold cuts

and cool beer and warmbaths.

Then came theresistance:

                The hardened experts,

                The second liners,

                                The outnumbered,

                                The good-hearted,

                                The builders-up.

Then came thenew Equinox.

Then asserted, thepeonies and bumblebees.

Then came theVernal Solstice.

Earth tiltssun-ward,

Orion leads

Again, acrossthe scorching summer sky.

Sciencewarns us,

                Yet, we stand resolute:

                Sirius, Procyon,

                                Scoldedand heeled

                                Fangs bared,

We,red-blooded, won’t hide.

Indigobridged between terrestrial and cosmic.

Elect to stay.

Elect to fight:

Hunker andrebuild ad infinitum:

                In paradise,

                Aqua-bound, surrounded,

                Pre-Diluvian, yet

                                Still resolute:

                                White-Starred,

Blue-paneled,and red-striped.

Violet nightsky, a canvas for a new-bowed promise.

                                 And the breeze is picking up.