I wake to an ocean churning brown as rust,
shore strewn with driftwood bones of shelter lost.
Mud clings beneath my boots;
thresholds gape where doors once blocked wind.

A sailboat tilts in a ditch, mast snapped,
pines flung like splinters across the road.
Blue tarps tremble—torn flags
above streets stilled by silence.

Diesel and pine soak the air,
heavier than the storm’s own roar.
I barter tarp and story
for a night’s shelter.

Through wreckage, a cat’s cry threads—
faint will rising from ruin,
among the bones of this town.