In reservoir retention basins
Suburban houses stand
neatly in unknowing rows
Awaiting fates that leave their owners
homeless, carless, hopeless
Sitting ducks set in a ditch
Decoyed as a development tract
When in fact it was a
Muddy River
Waiting to be born
A flood that waits to flow and
Wash away flowering dreams
Not just sitting ducks
But sacrificial lambs
Grazing by the dams
Until they were unleashed
READ MORE
The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else [Bloomberg]
Kathy Gibbons lives in Houston, Texas. She and her husband were two of the Lucky Ones during the dark days of Hurricane Harvey. Surrounded by friends and neighbors whose lives were swamped not only by the storm but by the subsequent releases from upstream dams, they had but to bail and worry and protect their loved ones in anticipation of the worst. And watch in horror as it unfolded around them. Her work can be read in Anti-Heroin Chic, Tuck Magazine, and Creative Nonfiction’s Tiny Truths column.
Photo by Eli Pastor.
