The men who live in the woods behind my house had been getting out of hand for some time. They were all in their mid-fifties, golfers formerly, and meat eaters -- jolly men in general -- but since ... [+]
Highways
Vivisected
Shotgun houses
with mouths agape
gasping for air
Two fires alight
Landing like birds
One in each steeple
Of a Baptist church
On either side of town
The city
clasped in an open oyster
slipping into the gulf
All prayers for rain
answered in full
At the advice of a saint,
Gradlon fled on horseback
Before the sea
Swallowed his home.
Wading at the edge of dry land
He watched the cathedrals engulfed,
White clapboard splitting,
Blackbirds flying toward anything afloat.
All of this he recorded in scrimshaw,
Not knowing what else to do.
A gull squawks
in time
with the waves
An oyster sings
Tirra Lirra Tirra Lirra
in harmony
Gradlon tries
to write this song down
for the drowned
What else is there to do?