Fire and flood
       

our house flooded from the sea
when I was a boy
I remember backing up the stairs
step by step in curiosity

as the tide came in
sea-level was our threshold
and flood flushed out
rats from the foreshore

woodlice and crabs
old Tom Hawgood ex-sailor
Deasy's Lemonade and Bass
bottles and bladder-wrack

something unpleasant
from underneath the floorboards
next day the misery of everything
waiting for a dry hour

the insurance company said
fire but not flood
the irony of it
time burned it to ground where it stood

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Copyright © 2018 William Wall All rights reserved
from The Yellow House
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission