Dear Editor:
The thing about a hurricane, about a flood, the thing about the filth, the mountains of sodden possessions growing on sidewalks, in the streets –and it’s still raining! – is it tells us, dragging another heavy bag or end table from homes now more hovels –
to let it go.
Don’t look back for a third bitter time. Don’t look too far ahead, and don’t look back, not right now. You don’t have to.
My boots are half-filled with water. I’m too busy to pull them off and empty them. What for, wet is wet, they’ll just fill up again
It’s greenish, this water, from the ocean and the river, from the street and below the street, from drowned cars and oil tanks. From all of us.
If there is a lesson, it’s in the socks. Mine are a terrible bother, clammy wet, slippery and falling down around submerged ankles. In all this, right now, I could do without those cold clammy rags embracing my feet.
Reaching for a box, which disintegrates at the touch – all funky – and in the wetness, a picture, so tiny by comparison, of our child, or of us as a child. Damaged, smeared, but you know, peeling it away, it might dry out.
Gary Galsworth