New Orleans Revisited
by Alan King
here you are – two years
later – on South Claiborne Avenue
among Walgreens, a tire shop and
gutted-out homes whose water marks
are the only signs of Katrina
it's just you and Joe, the driver,
in a YMCA van heading downtown
imagine ten-foot waves coming atcha',
clearing three blocks in five seconds, he says
and goes on about the Y's residents
retreating the flooded first floor to upper
levels where you and five other young
reporters from D.C. crash for the week
you watch the mile markers, and try
holding your breath between them before
you'd desperately gasp for air
like that time at the beach when
you, 10 yrs. old, jumped too soon
and the current snatched you
under the wave's wide body
like those who drowned here –
a fate you would've shared
if your dad wasn't close enough
to lift you above towering water
when you ride past the Superdome,
Joe says the stench inside
was so thick he swore he could see
its musty apparitions
A Cave Canem fellow and Vona Alum, Alan King's fiction and poems have appeared in the Arabesques Review, Warpland, Black Renaissance Noire, The Amistad, and Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS, among others. His work was also part of Anacostia Exposed, a collaborative exhibit with Irish photographer Mervyn Smyth that showcases the life and energy of Anacostia.
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