After Ida

by JC Reilly 
 Today Grand Isle’s candy-colored houses look like faces 
with their noses and eyes smashed in. Boats are overturned. 
 

So many buildings smashed in. Boats overturned, 

ripped in half as if made from paper, take on standing water. 
 As if made from paper, armoires, doors, and tables wilt in standing water, 
a child’s swing set is shorn in three places, chains tangled 
 

like kelp. A child has lost her swing set. Chains tangle 

like telephone wires. Someone’s RV is missing 
 its wall. Telephone poles lie on their sides. Someone is missing. 
Send help. Crabs scamper across the main road, don’t notice the damage. 
 

When an old woman returns to survey the damage, 

the sobbing rivals Ida’s howl. My home, she wails, my home. 
 The men are stoic for their wives who wail, My home, my home. 
Grand Isle’s candy-colored houses look like their owner’s faces today. 
 August 30, 2021 
 
 
 Arkansas Review 53.3 (December 2022) 
 210