The gray wave expects to clear our railings
by the end of today. Its rhythm is patience.
Cradled on land then inhaled into walls,
water’s in business with a subtle moon. They
have a plan but won’t tell. You watch
the sea foam simmer from the middle story
of a burning building. Its flames blow east
the way everyone predicted. It was a matter
of time, there was that night you fell asleep with
candles burning near the drapes, the day you left
a thicket of lint to choke the dryer. The fire forgave you
then, but you owed him.
                                        Just as you owe the earwig
who, for the third day now, waits in your phone’s receiver,
pincers sharpening on the stone of their own mercy.
You dial someone to insist the worst
must be over. Can you hear him
tapping? There’s a message
in his code: you’re afraid
                                        of the wrong catastrophe.