09/05/2021. WARNING: This Video Contains Graphic Images (Poem).

A wide mouth full of mud regurgitating debris. The usual stuff:

Mattresses, bed ends, cups, carpets, chairs, a lawnmower.

Each partially submerged. (We wait for Providence to take over.)

Wallets, small change, a set of dentures, food particles.

(We pan the sky's torn shrouds, close in on loosening clods of earth.)

Birds, buckshot from wild palms. Photographs, medicines,

A change of underwear, a diary, perishables, worldly goods.

(We can enter it anywhere, and have.) Everyone crowds to the window

To watch the rain on the cold sea. (No room for angels’ wings

And the rain is cold). The infant, swollen, on a patch of sand.

(God's own gaze, beguiled.) The wind relentless on that little line

There—faded pale, washed-out figures jostle about, framed footage:

A world loosened to the full unknowable forces stirred.