Twelve years old – decades before play dates –
best friend and I bicycle – just for the hellish
heck of it – through a hurricane – knocking
trees down all over Long Island –
Imagine playing dodge ball on fat-tire bikes –
only now we’re dodging – not only downed
trees – but trees ready – at any moment –
to grind into pavement the two of us –
Wind howls – rain rivers streets – downed power
lines spark everywhere you look – we’re
soaked to the skin – yet it all feels like we stole
the keys to a Coney Island fun house –
*
Spin fortune’s spokes ahead fifty years – and I
stand in terror outside my home – a hurricane
shakes sixty-foot oaks as if an earthquake – and I pray
to the fates they won’t cleave in half the house –
Fifteen inches of rain in twenty-four hours – north
of New York City – power out for a week – well
polluted by run-off – impossible to drive tree-
clogged streets – cold canned food by candlelight –
woods for an outhouse – siphoning cellar’s depths –
watching our pond’s stocked bass fin their way
across the street to the neighbor’s pond – as I –
half in tears – half in jest – standing in water
to my calves – plead with them to U-turn home
