‘Floodwaters’ by Dani Dymond

In memory of Colette Sulcer

There were no witnesses: a woman, hoisting
her young daughter above the surface –

but I know your wrists must have bent
at 90-degree angles as your hands became

platforms, like flattened wings, supporting
a child while the downpour continued to rise.

You were a nurse, so you knew sacrifice,
but the cruel irony of mother nature

taking you away from the preschooler
whose pink backpack – a neon lighthouse

in the storm – alerted the last lifeboats,
was too much even for the headline writers;

they struggled to title articles about you,
leaving seasoned reporters tearing up

over their notes late in the night. The ink
there mixed with fallen droplets, private

occurrence at so many silent work desks
vastly contrasting the hypothermic cries

of your toddler as she climbed your arms
like monkey bars, muscle memory

from autumn evenings together at the park
called on during the wrath of a hurricane.

This three-year-old, with the middle name
Grace, survived the rain because of the burn

throughout your triceps, an exercise in instinct
that should’ve turned the floodwater to steam.

From issue #7: autumn/winter 2018

About the Author
Dani Dymond’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Banshee, Drunk Monkeys, Buck Off Magazine, Young Ravens Literary Review, all the sins, RipRap, and elsewhere. She is a proud queer feminist and tree hugger with an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach.