Herminia, 61 Poem by Grahame Lockey

Herminia, 61, aslumber at her sea-food stall
dreamed the port was rocking like a boat
and woke to find it was.

The sea!
It isn't there!
Holy Jesus! Where's the sea?

Never had she seen a sky so big.
It had rushed to fill this new, collapsed horizon.

Herminia, 61, fingered fear, four-pointedly.

Gusts, thrown sudden as a punch hit her.
They left her winded, gulping throatfuls
of what
could not
be happening.

Herminia was there
to see the breath of something monstrous
mix the litter up with stars.

What wind is this, magnificent,
but Lord be told, so eerie?

Herminia was there
to hear the trumpets of catastrophe -
loud, unclear,
turning streets like a stomach.

The devil bends what the devil sends.
Waves the height of Heaven, hooked
like claws, heralded the sea's return.

She named, in vain, her only God.

She ran like shrieks, ran lights to lines,
ran as slow as water ebbing,
ran at dream-resisted rushing, running down
and out of breath, she ran
herself, her 61 years, down.


In the blue, true morning
pitchers-in found children
in the branches left on trees,
hanging dead like the air.