There was an island.
I’m not sure what all’s left

after the hurricane,
division the same as multiplying

by fractions, loss masquerading
as gain, but then again

long before it hit we hiked
over to the Chimney

on the Bay side, a brick stack
remained, the rest imagination—

this wasn’t the first time,
and won’t be the last.

Things get displaced
in a memory, I wonder

if I could still trace a path
from the Pouldeau Lagoon

to Ranger Station, dunes
moving around like shook

out blankets, edges slipping
under the big blue Gulf—

I haven’t stepped foot
in Pascagoula in over

eight years, but I still think
about someday taking a boat

out to watch the molten
aspect of one more sunset

that I’ll never get quite right,
to hear just after nightfall

the calls of great herons,
rusty saws or Satan himself,

flat-footing across the Water’s
Crossing, to shake a yellow can

of seasoning into a shrimp boil
and meet the ink-globed eyes

of the recently deceased,
to ponder on the way

a horseshoe crab carries
the weight of prehistoric dreams

and maybe there is something
to be gained from the way

we cling to whatever we kept,
whatever was left, no matter

how little, and especially then—
like those tiny snails

clung hard to the grasses
in the salt marsh, evaporation

at work, losses, again—
but we were nonetheless

amazed to watch the crystals
appear from out of nowhere,

and of course we knew better,
we just didn’t care.