What can be written on
floodwaters brown and rising,
on each impending storm’s prophecy
of slow drowning and long aftermath

of mold spreading its gray-green fingers
across this decade’s slim pages of
possible survival? The year’s
obituaries float by as

loudly as rain’s staccato,
as quietly as lake’s shadows,
rippling with what will come
tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

What can be written? Nothing
and everything by the girl
marooned on her wooden
island (doghouse or
chicken coop?)

inches above
the deep sepia river un-
leashed by yesterday’s weather.
Disaster usurps the road, her yard, her home,

the Earth. In her old-fashioned skirt and tie—
bygone school uniform—she is our before
and after, staring without and within
at what we keep denying

even now. Though no
Noah, she’s young enough to know
when construction is called for, action needed.
With dry pen and wet words, she’s ready to build

a tiny boat
large enough
for the future
of the world.