"Summers on Long Island" by Mary Christine Delea

Summers on Long Island

summer was scrap metal
June rain sloshing into creeks
flooding the air with smells
of dead shellfish and burnt wood
then sluicing the sweat
from each of us
as we moved from humid moments
to hot September memories

planes and towers

we are still dying
from that day
years rushing poisons through bodies
spilling over with decay
twenty years later
some neighborhoods tired
of remembering
and forgetting

each summer since
hotter than the one before
whatever else happens here
things that occur on flights
disasters natural
and otherwise
a storm coming ashore
with its toxins

I sit in this house
windows open and fans on
next-door neighbor dead
decades after working
towers clean-up
widow wondering when
compensation will reach her

and we all wait
for the taste of silver and steel
to be digested
for good

Mary Christine Delea

Mary Christine Delea has a PhD in English/Creative Writing and is a former university professor. She is the author of one full-length poetry collection and three chapbooks. Her web site (mchristinedelea.com) includes a blog where she posts writing prompts on Sundays and poems by others on Sundays and Wednesdays. She is learning Irish and recently quit Twitter.

Headshot: Mary Christine Delea

Photo Credit: Staff