People couldn’t help but give them names,
to tell one from another.
Some seasons exhaust the alphabet
naming violences.
Six months of repeated beatings,
lightning strikes and heat waves.
One hurricane can alter a coastline, a life.

Ours is a culture of disaster.
Entire families board up the windows
then go surfing. Sandbag the foundation
then jetski the drowned streets.
Kids get out kites and canoes.
Even if there’s no power
and the bottled water’s running out.

This is how we grew up, taking paradise
tides one day at a time, holding hands
at three funerals my senior year alone.
We tossed in our handful of dirt.
We hugged the mothers of the dead.

After parties became  hereafter  parties.
We danced in our funeral clothes,
kept late night vigils,
post-apocalyptic parties,
under-the-sea parties,

no-tomorrow parties.
We treaded grief like water,
missed hurricanes in the off season,
when chaos ebbed enough
for us to see clearly, all the damage.