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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