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Cadaver dogs and search crews trudged through knee-deep muck and debris in the mountains of western North Carolina on Tuesday looking for more victims ofHurricane Helene days after the storm carved a deadly and destructive path through the Southeast. —AP, October 1, 2024 |
He found his wife’s body draped over
a limb, her skirt flapping in the wind
like a bedsheet pinned to a line, her
long hair hanging like Spanish moss.
He dropped to his knees in the mud,
moaning like a bear caught in a steel
trap, ready to gnaw off its leg to stop
the pain. He didn’t care, anymore,
about their splintered house floating
like matchsticks down the river, never
felt the dog’s rough tongue trying to
lick the agony from his face. Still, he
could not make himself believe what
he was seeing—pictured her, instead,
walking down the aisle with flowers
tumbling from her hands. He vaguely
recalled saying to her, Till death do us
part, but it tasted like gibberish in his
mouth, words with no meaning about
a time he was sure would never come.
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Rattle, The SUN, and numerous other publications. Her awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize among many others. She lives in North Carolina, USA.