Limbs jackknifed across blacktop.
Empty traffic lights, sagging wires
low enough to burn.

Slow crawl
threads the wreckage,
looking for the lone diner
windowed in neon.

The smell is the same
(pine torn open, wet insulation)
as that late Florida summer
when the eye passed over,
clawing the roof open,
rain pooling in the outlets.

Carpet gutted,
two-year-old barefoot on concrete
tracks chalky dust
from room to room
while we wait for mold
to darken corners
of the ceiling.

Boxes packed for another home
a thousand miles away. 

Here, power will return
in a day or two.
Splinters swept away, the shade
stitches itself back together.
But the scent will carry
until the next time
the wind decides
what’s raised
and what remains.

Previously published in Eunoia Review