by Katarina Bodreaux
Details of deliverance
unknown to slim
since the power
had given up,
the block decided
to barbecue anything
frozen when the
sun finally returned.
Broken things
piled around us
served as tables
and chairs, and
we dined finely
on what the bellies
of the deep had
held so dependably.
The streets were
blocked and guns
lay under our pillows,
but the shrimp and
catfish passed,
corn with Tabasco
dripping, our world
the size of several
yards that weren’t
green but cement,
of potatoes red hot
with cayenne and
blistering on the
tongue, searching for
other things to talk
about in the clatter of
who should walk
and who should swim.
The bottom came,
and the hunger;
eventually the splintering
swept through
on the arms of electric
wires turned octopi,
but years and states
away, I remember
the fullness of what
we didn’t lose
after losing so much.
