After the Storm
Wading knee-deep
for six-pack and cigarettes
I watch my feet,
three inches from my knees,
under a foot of water
negotiate the curb.
They look like two fish
hugging the tarmac bottom,
trying to turn some silt
onto themselves. Their eyes
stare up at me, trailing
four broken-off hooks.
In the package store
my sneakers slap-slap
between the aisles of tinned fruit
and cornflakes. Mrs. Morales
wraps up the dry goods
in a mermaid’s purse.
Wading back home
I stop while a car swims
past the front of our house,
a bottle-nose Chevy
sending ripples
right up to the screen door.
Three days of rain
have filled the garden up.
The clothes line is no higher
than a tennis net.
A pelican sits on the fence-pole,
surprised at itself.
Michael Paul Hogan is a poet, journalist and literary essayist whose work has appeared extensively in the US, UK, India and China. His most recent collection, Chinese Bolero, illustrated by the painter Li Bin, was published in 2015.