Hymn to a Hurricane

For the grace of fingers that could not grasp edges, corners, or anchors. For hands that were too wet to bridge the chasm of inches or rope. For the wrist and its bending digits, for the drowned infants who floated like wood past the dark hulls of their mothers' bodies.

For the days-old corpses of women and men whose wheelchairs became graves. For children who were too shocked to speak their identities; for the ghosts of their voices that haunt the flag to which they were taught to pledge allegiance.

For the rainbows that assembled in their waters diseased with gasoline and blood. For the voices whose rage thundered like thunder inside the stadium because they refused the musky death of animals.

For the men who fired guns at helicopters that passed over their own nearly submerged heads. Over and over the blades whirred promises of water and bread and help while mothers and daughters, brothers and fathers drowned, their lives devoured by neglect.

Lives gave up on the living and floated to dark, drier islands. Torrents rose over broken levees. Dead cattle bobbed along interstates. Highways unfurled into ribbons and graves. The President remained on vacation. The Secretary of State shopped for shoes.

For Charmaine Neville who commandeered down Canal Street while storefronts shattered and bodies were raped. Helpless fists pounded the bus window like bullets. For the junkies who needed something

stronger than death or a dream to placate their addictions. For the residents who refused to abandon the corpse of New Orleans.

For a husband who could not save his entire family because he only had two hands. For their house split in half by water. For his wife's last words: you can't hold onand hold me. For the absence of God as she dropped his hands and gave herself like a petal to the gulf.

For her son who understood, as he climbed onto the roof by the help of two trembling hands, that his father, only a man and not a god, could not save his mother's life from something as inexplicable as water.