The Americas stand in the schoolyard
where asphalt traps late-summer heat.
El Niño boils the seawater
in a flare like dark autoimmune nights.
The eyes of one hold a hurricane
while another offers a chicken bone
to a stray. The sky is all the colors of the flag—
blue and blood and pearly haze.
The storm will hit before the barriers can rise.
The Americas are rich and maize
their beauties silken in the gathering wind;
the coast drums as I drag castoffs
that will surely fit someone.
Sparrowing along, I feel all the water
forgotten until drowning at the shoreline’s hook.
What I have lost is a score of years
plucked clean. Perhaps they have flown
into the trees with the conjure market’s hen.
The good asked of us is equivocal
yet better by far than nothing.
Our landfill is Gulf Coast,
is swordfish on the turn. This city too
recalls the island in it.
Recalls the haven it might still be.
Carol Alexander is the author of FEVER AND BONE (Dos Madres Press), ENVIRONMENTS (Dos Madres) and HABITAT LOST (CMP). Her work appears in journals such as About Place Journal, Canary, Denver Quarterly, The Common, One, Pif, Split Rock Review, Southern Humanities Review, Stonecoast Review, South Florida Poetry Review, Third Wednesday, and Verdad. Recent work appears in Another Chicago Magazine, Delmarva Review, Free State Review, Mudlark, Narrative Northeast, Pensive, Potomac Review, San Pedro Review, RHINO, Sweet Tree Review, and The Summerset Review. With Stephen Massimilla, Alexander co-edited the award-winning anthology Stronger Than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice (Cave Moon Press, 2022). A new collection of Alexander’s poetry is forthcoming in 2024 from Glass Lyre Press.