There are no bells, but they are there
lining the streets, palms outstretched

women on their knees between cream-colored petals
of orchids carelessly blooming by the drainage ditch

their scrubbed feet free of rice paddy mud
with palm fronds overhead

in their hands, cut butter and fruit
for the monks that file past in smart orange robes

if you were here, you would watch them with me
you would peel lychee fruits for breakfast

at this hour the people are wide awake
and the day is struggling to keep up

somewhere behind the early clouds
the sun is winking over the trees

morning birds never seem to sing here
where the rain has been falling for days

Most people would say
things were better here
before the hurricane—

granted
living on top of your roof
has its drawbacks—

no shade in the day
and no friends nearby—
it’s a ****** quiet time—

things certainly were good
two weeks ago
to watch a funeral step second line

droning a hoarse dirge
down the street—
before this town began drowning—

furniture floats by
on its way out of town
smarter than most watchers-by—

but there are upsides
to the situation—
the view

now free to swing
at its leisure
over a whole city of roofs

spread like Monopoly houses
across the flat
teal-blue board—

small rowboats float
down the brand-new waterways
picking up waving folks

from one roof
after another—
there’s people that have done this before—

the quiet after disaster
expecting help wanting none
and hearing no music for days—

I’d have left off loving you long back
If not for the glory of our local greasy spoon.
Your long fingertips
Curled over the red plastic borders
Framing the menu’s backside, showing me lunch specials, the Hungryman plate.
In this scene we are the couple caught up in a picture-book love
And so shy of speaking it that affection
Becomes a game of concealment versus concession.
We are good at the game, and our strategies evolved
Complex techniques of deceptive chitter chatter.
We made greasy spoon small talk, talk like artificial sweetener;
Because talk of substance would be to take account of the closing in of reality and my
Impending departure to tropical countries, names unpronounceable.
How much simpler to order soggy hash browns.
How much simpler to butter white bread toast
With white butter wrapped in gold packets.
Map spread on the linoleum tabletop,
I pointed out places with names full of P’s and K’s,
Overstuffed with consonants and gathering
Crumbs from our buttery palms.
Our fingers touched so often,
These hands might as well have been holding;
But then, days before my flight into the hot tropics,
These hands won’t touch, they’ll let their fingerprints drown in finger food grease.
Those days it was summer, when the weather was a mystery—
Ceaseless weeks overcast, when grey skies hanging above
Pondered pouring rain on us; it was a very indecisive summer.
We walked from the diner, both tucked under one umbrella,
Felt the unpleasant humidity and
Our own hesitance before saying goodbye.

They were more in love now
Than they had ever been before.

Lying in a small, yellow raft,
The sun lit them for 20 hours of the day.

Small fragments of floes drifted past;
With his pen-knife he carved
Ice flowers of them for her.

At night, the sky flushed ultramarine to match the water.
She would make a pillow of his shoulder
And they slept warm enough, blanketless.

They didn’t do much on their raft
Because there wasn’t much to do—

Around them, the sea was chill-blue
And they loved each mother more.

Months before, when they brought the cruise tickets,
It had been the clean aesthetic of the arctic
And the words ‘Secret Norway’ that won them over.

No, they didn’t want to uncover Norway’s secret;
They wanted to become a part of it, a final
“Great escape” into their dying years.

The cruise ship went under, they thought,
As if by choice into black-water oblivion.

A casual dive through the glassed-over surface.
A few inflated yellow rafts.

Of course, it was difficult for them, to look
On as that stranger’s blue hand stretched for their raft.
‘This is our great escape,’ they both were thinking.

Was it envy they felt when he let go?
It doesn’t matter. They, too, planned
To slip into that same murk at some point.

But for now, they would be in love.
He paddled them through the iceberg drifts and

They fell asleep at night, curled one next to the other,
To the measured sounds of melting glacial drip.

Today, only today,
I am beautiful;
But tomorrow, Oh tomorrow,
That must die away.

Only for this hour
Are you still mine;
But to die, Oh to die,
Is for me to do alone.

There is an electric hum from traffic lights
Barely audible to the people waiting at the corner
Overwhelmed with confusion over the former
Condition of the economy in spite
Of the surplus of traffic signs
So they stare at traffic signs
The signs don’t mind
They stare right back and watch and contemplate crossing, too
But the signs will stay behind
Because people go
As they please
Under an ashy sky
And flickers
Of lightning
Appearing in the clouds

Consider the aerodynamics of taxicabs
You wish humans were so streamlined and yellow
We’re not so bad!
Said a fellow
Accountant using an algebraic formula to attempt to derive
Why you smile for us and I’ve
Noticed, though no one else has, the electric storm churning
Miles above
Polarizing the sky
In silence

They tremble, these, the not-so-poor
It’s that fearful tic, the one we’ve seen before
But you tremble, too
Do you see me quiver
We’ve got that quick jitter
Like a prickling under the skin that’s pulsing through
Our blood the way that caffeine does
Or the wattage exploding in death throes or birth throes
Above us now
Hypnotic
And powerful
Though I cannot tell
Exactly how far away

Afterwards, Stanley said of the event,
“Everything started to happen…”
What did he do? He snapped photos,
He called one The Soiling of Old Glory.
The even horizontal of the flagpole
Would be likened by critics to the engraving
Of the Boston Massacre.
“I saw him going down
And rolling over.”
Before the incident, the protesters
Recited the pledge of allegiance,
Hands over hearts.
Stanley was on the scene—
It all happened in 20 seconds.
“He was being hit with the flagpole.
I switched lenses.”