The Silenced Sax

The Silenced Sax

Katrina roared
and a State collapsed.
Freed levy water buried the blues
and floated bloated bodies, face down

on a mat of toxic mud. A man
squats on his rooftop,
his home drowned

to the eaves. A mother lay
on a concrete step, quiet
and quite alone, her newborn snatched

by the rabid sea in shadowed days
and suckled on a stranger’s breast.
Hunger vied with haemorrhaging

to steal her life
as looters steal Twinkies
to survive.

And in the corner
sits a silent sax.