Dreams After the Storm

by Eliza Victoria

 

1.

After the endless pounding of rain the storm recedes and the sound it leaves

behind persists for days and remains with you like a comforting echo

there there there there it says or else

break this break this

 

2.

In the legend he is called salot and has the body of a man but the legs of a rooster. Outside the glass oval of your kitchen door you’ll see a smiling face, but look down and you’ll see claws, yellow skin that looks like scales. He will knock politely, more politely than your neighbor, and you will let him in, not knowing that to let him in is to invite death.

In this version you open the door. He has been standing in the rain for hours, so cold he is close to tears. Your wrap a towel around him and serve him coffee. I’m so sorry about this, he’ll say through chattering teeth, and you will not comment on how his claws are scratching your floor, ruining the speckled tiles that your husband loves so much. It is just my job.

 

3.

The man who lost his entire family to the current is afraid to close his eyes. In the dark he sees his wife’s face, and hears himself saying Hold on but there is nothing to hold on to but air. He wants to jump in with her but the air is made of glass. He pounds on it with both of his fists.

 

4.

He is not very good with memorizing places. He always says That’s where we live, by the statue of a girl sitting with a book, because he can’t remember the street names, he can’t gauge the distance from where he is to where his parents are waiting. But now everything is submerged, the landmarks neatly erased. He stands in the flood and waits for the directions to come to him, waits for the girl to reappear with her book. He stands motionless, calming himself. He tries to believe that he’ll be able to find a way out of his own city.

 

5.

Every natural occurrence has a spirit, and with a catastrophe this big perhaps it is safe to say that the storm’s spectre can take on a human form, materialize into flesh and appear on our streets. There are two silent young men who appear to us every night, and we see them wearing suits and ties and patent leathers that never get splattered with mud. We see them as impersonal creatures, carrying checklists, betraying no sympathy, because the storm has gutted every house in this town and spared no one.

I don’t know, perhaps I was the one-thousandth person they have interviewed, perhaps they were just so tired, but halfway through my story one of the two young men bowed his head and wept. The other one knelt down beside me and helped me scrape through the mud. I told him we could only use our hands, because if we used a tractor, for example, the remaining part of the hill might come crashing down. I told him, Can you help me find my daughter, but he just kept scraping through the mud and wouldn’t answer.

 

6.

There are databases the input the missing. The names climb down with every addition, like a stranded victim giving up.

 

7.

They are there to have their picture taken. They show their bruises, the cuts on their arms, their stitched-up wounds. One woman just stares straight at the camera, eyes clear, no scars visible. The sea took my children away, she says, and you wonder how you can put that in a photograph.

 

8.

Just two paragraphs in and you are already looking for another word for submerge.

 

9.

The storm appears to you as a young boy with black eyes perhaps to gain your sympathy listen he is saying I should have gone to a place where I will be welcomed he is saying I have longed for upturned hands now dry now drenched now saying Praise be Praise be but you raise your hands and cover your ears.

 

10.

The entire town will be gone the next morning, but outside it is sunny and the young woman hums, folding her laundry, sleeve, sleeve, hem, sleeve, sleeve, hem, lost in the symmetry of repetition. Her body will never be found. you open your mouth and scream a warning, but the sound awakens you even before you can finish giving your message.

 

An earlier version of this poem originally appeared in Rocket Kapre’s Ruin and Resolve charity anthology in December 2009.