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Elizabeth Gross: The problem of address

March 29, 2013 by PBQ

The problem of address
 
calls up the word refraction.
Leaked light. Crossed wires.
Ask me anything.
 
 
 
The problem of address (1)
 
 
Clear Texas sky above us
as we watch the water
rising slowly on TV

draining slowly
until the second storm
fills the city up again

high to the highest
muck lines left behind.
No one allowed back.

I think of Europe
between the wars—
thinking the big one is over.

History skips that thought.
It has to. That sigh
of relief, hard work.

I remember the map
from fifth grade—Louisiana
shrinking back in twenty years

opening new bubbles of water
in the wetlands, sinking
as the sea level rises to fill

the folds of rivers’ ends.
In a hundred years, the disappearing
swamps will leave New Orleans

a walled city on the sea
river levees hanging down
like frayed rope into the Gulf.

Here’s the difference between zero
and first conditionals—
it’s between if and when
 
 
 
The problem of address (2)
 
 
No, she did not own her home. No, she did not have 
   renter’s insurance.
Yes, she’d like to be included

in a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Her voice gets lost

all that yelling in the background—twelve family members
in one Georgia hotel room.

She stops answering my questions but she wants to tell
when the water came,

when they blew up the levees to drive us out, she could hear
explosions on the floodwall.

It’s my job to make the calls—not to listen—to collect
   insurance information.
Other girls in the office

make faces at the ignorance they reach, the ones who
   expect homeowner’s
to pay for flood damage.

If the roof blew off, they’re lucky—the storm came before
   the flood—
the house is covered.

A man on the road yes, owned his own home yes has
   homeowner’s insurance.
No does not have that policy number—

those papers buried in the sludge that was his study. Now he’s angry
he’ll call me back,

he’ll search his car again, he asked his wife to pack their papers
when he went for gas.

Some interrupt my questions to ask where I am, if I’m really here,
at what intersection,

how’s downtown look, where else have I been through?
 
 
 
The problem of address (3)
 
 
glows on the faces you meet on the other side
of the news

when you are part of the news but no one knows you’re there—
the news means elsewhere

It’s a problem with pronouns, with they and they and they
which is all you ever are

in a diaspora. For me, in Dallas, riding the DART downtown
I overhear the locals

joking those New Orleans folks are gonna mug us
better watch your back

They don’t mean me, I know, but I rib them anyway, say
I’m one of those

New Orleans people, and I won’t take your money, this time, if
you tell me where the exit is.

Filed Under: Contributors 86, Issue 86, Poetry, Poetry 86 Tagged With: Contributors 86, Elizabeth Gross, Poetry, Poetry 86

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