Given
a poem by Liza Katz Duncan
Can’t he see that our bodies
are just our bodies, tied to what we know?
. – Patricia Smith
Given the urgency with which humans run toward water, have always run toward water
Given the human impulse to build at the tide’s fingertips
Given ancient cultures evolved on floodplains, thrived for thousands of years, and there are those who flourish still: who don’t hold onto trappings, or have none to hold onto; who fold their dark tents onto their backs once a year and walk to higher ground
Given our bodies are just our bodies, 78 percent water
Given my neighbor Kristina, who had nowhere to go; who hadn’t packed, was wearing all her valuables when the storm hit
Given the wedding ring from a previous marriage, the bruise it made on her swollen fingers a parenthesis left open
Given this house and everything in it is everything she’s ever made or done: an oil painting of a fisherman at high tide. A clam shell for an ashtray. A daughter. A life
Given all of these floating through the flooded house like driftwood
Given the basement filled like a bathtub
Given roads turned to rivers
Given bodies fished from the phragmites
Given a growing ocean
What would you have done?