by Charlotte Hamrick

in that house red beans & rice
cooked every Monday for four
generations until the water
washed it away.

it floated down Forgotten Street,
clapboards splintering like frail old
bones in the jaws of the beast.

the land where it stood's going on
five years empty now, sacred ground
bleached with the salt of bitter tears
but still loved with a fierceness that
would amaze the unbaptized.