Member Poem

Trees decorated in plastic bags and shredded clothes
The high water mark in a mud stained line
Across the bows of houses.
We left this subdivision before the storm
Black garbage bags chock
Full of childhood photos
Pointing the car east
Wondering what we left behind.

In New Orleans the survivors
Of Betsy keep axes in their attics
They never forget the rising water
The fire ants floating on artificial reefs
The water moccasins striking bloated bodies.

We return to a sunken house
A symbol of survival
Painted on the front –
No one home, no one dead.