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"Who dares mention Noah and his ark?" one mouth
defies from a pocket of air just beneath attic rafters,
one ax on truss waiting to spilt open the roof

rat snakes and stinging ants in smelly miasma
while two dolphins trace circles in a green pool outback
new cohabilitation in this pressure dome

mystics out of buisness crap tables overturned
voodoo pins ease out of bleating hearts
mausoleums overwhelmed, coffins rise, the living fall

faces and sky weep and weep the sake of the world
labor and lovers submerged on knees, tiptoes
up to their necks the parish small flashlights

trying to keep watch on roofs now waiting for baskets
they were amply warned they couldn't move
stem the incoherent flow passing by these stars

why did they stay? no car weak legs no cats
shelters won't accept pets one belligerent woman screams
bloody for meth addicts break into prisoners break out

babies still born, old ones fanned, ignored
they were amply warned why didn't they leave?
the strong without answers the weak without voice

the floated and mucked to some house that made it, or not
a pillowcase full of valuable things unhinged
open shattered harried they wait, stolen, spent, standing in mud

begging for busses waving shirts and rags,
grandma passed out long ago, hospital morgues flooded
the dead stacked in stairwells the looters with guns

color the water with ninety square miles of big easy shadows,
scars seeking apostles unsure of the end, will love find a way?
debris swarmed gullies empty shoes sinking

rescuers launched Give me boots on the ground
Who will bear it all away? Who is at fault
when nature erupts? Does it matter, now, the Super Bowl,

that we flew to the moon, or just mapped the human genome?
breached, all breached foundations roots concrete
pillars covenants sink, collapse and give way to rot

or to faith unseen, deep hope in the creases memories for blankets
flowers apples limbs all asunder please God almighty
absorb all this delta and leave the mere dawn

redeem the time the way to save and in all this great wake
someone watches, someone yawns, one dry mouth prays
and one young voice cries for her mom

while I keep throwing the anchor to pull the boat forward.

In Remembrance of Katrina