What’s left is footage: the hours before
      Camille, 1969—hurricane
            parties, palm trees leaning
in the wind,
      fronds blown back,

a woman’s hair. Then after:
      the vacant lots,
      boats washed ashore, a swamp

where graves had been. I recall

how we huddled all night in our small house,
      moving between rooms,
            emptying pots filled with rain.

The next day, our house—
      on its cinderblocks—seemed to float
in the flooded yard: no foundation

beneath us, nothing I could see
      tying us      to the land.
      In the water, our reflection
                  trembled,
disappeared
when I bent to touch it.