Hurricane season expires quietly
Friday, December 29, 2000
A movement, Remember
wind pitched as if
a cracked violin/ shapes a body
like corrugated roofing
around telephone wires
around taxidermic fir
ocean of red salt wood
land|body|land
then humid and silence, Remember
before.hurricane.burn.sugarcane
fill bathtub with water to drink
an island: the summit of
a mountain submerged
on this land’s cape, Remember
wind shapes a body
for a boy must have/ valleys in miles
per house
Suzanna Urminska
The author, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania studying anthropology and photography, grew up in Kapa’a, Hawaii, where she lived through two hurricanes.
This is the fourth in a year-end series of commissioned poems based on Inquirer headlines.