Back from New Orleans

He told me about how
the ground was covered in shells.


they volunteered in
A section of the city which,
after 3 years of natural growth looked like broad farmland
but
smack in the middle of
the should-be city, there was just
something wrong about
the emptiness

And the houses, each remaining set of roof and walls marked
with the date it was searched
and the number of bodies removed

Brand-new houses and condominiums,
destroyed by flooding from the
inside out,
the watermark on the walls,
evidence of the flood levels;
boarded-up, useless
shells

You'd only get the ground covered in shells like that he said
from being under so much water for so long,

He told me about a man
walking into a bar in a deserted sector to find
others, company, and music inside

proving that
even if you kill New Orleans,

You haven't killed New Orleans.