Here the mud
is up to our hubcaps in the driveway,
and Mohawk grass marches down the center
safe from the mower for another month.
Drainage water is lapping at the road sign
down by the swamp
and the cranes back of the north field
fly a pas de deux at twilight.
California is hit by a
pineapple express
that promises another slow-motion disaster.
Rivulets like hydraulic mining gone amok
thicken like old blood.
tumble cement, black top, shingles
and indecipherable bits into soup.
Saturated ground sags and then flows
bringing down kilotons of earth
with Volkswagen-sized boulders
It piles up behind the houses in a thickening crest
first shoving then smashing in
siding, wall board, studs
What was a living room is filled
with rock, sludge, bushes, roots, the bodies
of neighbors who chose not to evacuate.
Does this flow
laden with shattered homes and lives
ever reach the ocean
Impounded in houses, on roads and yards
it dries and solidifies into nature-made cement,
holding up wreckage
sofa back roof strut gas grill
Adirondack chair now
transformed into
urban tombstones.
© 2018 Lily Colbin