AfroPoets Famous Writers

Providence


What's left is footage: the hours before
        Camille, 1969-hurricane
                parties, palm trees leaning
in the wind,
        fronds blown back,

a woman's hair. Then after:
        the vacant lots,
        boats washed ashore, a swamp

where graves had been. I recall

how we huddled all night in our small house,
        moving between rooms,
                emptying pots filled with rain.

The next day, our house-
        on its cinderblocks-seemed to float

        in the flooded yard: no foundation

beneath us, nothing I could see
        tying us             to the land.
        In the water, our reflection
                                tremble,
disappeared
when I bent to touch it.

Written by Natasha Trethewey

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