The faces of the missing continue to float
across the TV news even after the wet drywall
has lifted its skirts two feet off the floor
to show the bare 2x4s beneath.
We have become used to driving around
the stalled cars still abandoned mid-street.
Every night my buddy puts out a bowl
of food for a dog he hasn’t seen in days,
& the possum under his porch
gets fatter. In yards, & sidewalks,
& streets, mud puddles like open
wounds: the frogs around them sing
with the voices of the drowned while a man
stands in his front yard with a hair dryer
on an orange extension cord, blowing
through the pages of a book. When night
pours down, those who live closest to the river
can’t sleep. They lie in second-story beds
& listen for the sound of whole houses
hitting trees.
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