The way a flood looks overtaking a town.
What the levee, finally, refused to hold,
its burden which became the earth’s to endure:
the waterlogged farms and abandoned jungle-gyms,
triadic roof tops, X of railroad crossing,
a doe drinking in a wheat field swamp, backwater
drowning the stalks arched to their swollen image.
After the crest, the heavy waiting, the uncertainty
and hope for a slow withdrawal—
this is how it looked when the flood tides
of my unconscious loosed; fear the deluge.
And whatever remained after the devastation
will be forever changed: my eyes, mark of flood line,
just above the water, sinking.

Erica Lee Braverman