HURRICANE IAN: GIFTS IN THE MISERY OF AFTERMATH

by Claire Matturro

Ashley Garner had given up on ever seeing her wedding ring again. She lost it outside her Fort Myers home just days before Hurricane Ian crashed into the coast of southwest Florida last Wednesday… The family stayed at their home during the storm and went outside to clean up as soon as it had passed. “We’re about 10 minutes into cleaning, and my husband is cleaning up the brush and the trees right next to the garage door,” Garner said. “There’s a pile of brush and trees, and he moves over one pile, and the ring was right there.” —AP, October 8, 2022

Garbage swirls around broken people and

lost, bewildered pets while cadaver dogs

prowl mounds of wood and concrete bent to

waste by hurling winds and storm surge. Newly

homeless people crowded into shelters, 

feeling the roughness of unfamiliar pallets 

hard against their skin, are warned that they

must leave though they have nowhere to go.

 

Across the globe, Russians continue

killing Ukrainians, but here

in Florida our focus narrows—

How do we find our missing

mother? Where can we get fresh water?

Find food which tastes fresh

on our sore tongues? Shower off this itch and

stink? Is it safe to flush a toilet?

 

Inland, farmers search for lost horses in

swamped pastures and count dead cows flung

into ditches by river currents broken

free of levees in two feet of rain.

Someone’s pink umbrella floats by

in flood waters spun off a Gulf beach once

seemingly benign and filled with summer kids

splashing in waves not yet turned violent.

 

In all this cursed misery of aftermath

still strange gifts are bestowed—the neighbor

who never spoke to us arriving with chainsaw

to clear the cracked tree sloping over our porch;

hummingbirds unharmed returning to feed;

the perfect stranger who hands clean water,

tangerines, and $50 to an elderly man

crying inside his car that won’t start.

 

Then this, a woman finds her lost

wedding ring she feared was as

gone as the Gulf coast island homes.

She places the ring, retrieved from a pile of

brush and tree limbs, on her finger

soiled by the grime of recovery. She rests,

sitting on the curb, and prays to God, giving

thanks for what she sees as a sign of hope.

Claire Matturro is a former lawyer and college teacher, and author of eight novels, including four published by HarperCollins. Her poetry has been published in Kissing Dynamite, The New Verse News, One Art, Muddy River Poetry Review, Topical Poetry, Tiger Moth Review, Lascaux Review, and is forthcoming in Slant. 

PREGNANT AND TRAPPED IN MARIUPOL, UKRAINE

by Claire Matturro

“Pregnant women moved from Mariupol hospital were sheltering in bombed theatre.” —Sky News, March 26, 2022. Photo: Mariana Vishegirskaya, an injured pregnant woman walks downstairs in a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

At first we acted brave as we hurried

Inside the theater to flee mortars.

We had food and water, but I worried

Heavy with child if I’d make the border

If buses didn’t come. We sang bold songs,

then our food ran out, the water was gone.

Missiles crushed the walls, so we ran for trees,

as if feeble branches could stop the siege.

My baby kicks as an old man stopping

By me in the forest offers toffee.

He says “don’t chew it. It is the last one.

Let it melt slowly upon your tongue.

Chocolate and mint, a bit of sweet cream,

like the bold songs we used to bravely sing.” 

Author's Note: This sonnet is a heart-felt response to recent news stories about the continuing ordeal of people in Mariupol. The first eight lines are based upon direct news accounts—including the shelling of the theater where many took refuge and the wait for the humanitarian relief via the Red Cross buses. However, the last six lines, after the turn in the sonnet about the man offering the pregnant woman the last piece of candy, are wholly imagined. I wanted to show something of the kindness and courage of the Ukrainian people, which is so often reflected in news stories, and to offer at least a hint of hope. 

Claire Matturro has been a journalist, a lawyer, and a legal writing teacher at Florida State University and University of Oregon. She is the author of seven novels, including a legal thriller series published by HarperCollins, and is the co-author of a recent novel. She is an associate editor at Southern Literary Review and lives in Florida.

CHESS AT THE END OF THE WORLD

by Claire Matturro

We ran and jumped and bounced

over monkey bars in sandy school yards

then raced inside at the bell’s

shrill scream and covered our heads

as we crouched beneath wooden

desks that smelled of crayons and

fruit punch while outside

the open jalousie windows

cardinals and mockingbirds sang

their sweet wild songs

as soulless men hid

missiles in Cuban silos and

played chess with the end of the world

but we didn’t worry

because we were seven

and our mothers stockpiled

food and juice in pantries

and our fathers turned

the TV low so not to wake us.

 

We ran and jumped and lobbed

volley balls in sandy school yards

and the slap of leather against

our hands made us laugh

while soulless men

tested nuclear bombs and

played chess with the end of the world

but we didn’t care

because we were thirteen

and besides one of us had

a left-over bomb shelter

in her broad backyard where

we once played dolls and drank

canned juices from stockpiles

hidden behind concrete and steel.

 

I no longer run or jump and

the sandy school yard is silent

with pandemic and children gone

inside and the bomb shelter

long traded for a swimming pool

and its stockpiled juices tossed

into landfills yet soulless men still

play chess with the end of the world

as troops mass at borders and

the hurricane which will find

me in my glass house

breeds silently in melting ice

and the oil keeps flowing and

the coal keeps burning and

the missiles stockpiled in places

where children hide

their heads under thin arms

guarantee the collateral damage

we’ve learned to turn away from

as cardinals and mockingbirds

go quiet in the world outside my windows.

Claire Matturro has been a journalist, a lawyer, and a legal writing teacher at Florida State University and University of Oregon. She is the author of seven novels, including a legal thriller series published by HarperCollins, and is the co-author of a recent novel. She is an associate editor at Southern Literary Review and lives in Florida.