Baton Rouge

[Eric Helms]

Ad NauseamAs adrenaline fades into exhaustAnd a storm’s one-day spout breaksInto the spate of something biblicalAs a widow looks out of stained glassOnly to find her well-placed lawnLaid to rest and buried by a warpOf brown water which, on the rise,Only adds to the ad nauseam–hopeBeing yet born again in the wake of such lossFor which a child’s inflatable raft of Saint ThomasThe Train only replicates the collateral trackOf damage as it continues to ride what swellsWell beyond the white-washed fence a late husbandMust have placed forty years ago–as adrenaline fadesInto exhaust and memory floods back to this infinite pointOf no as a veteran’s little left resolve wades into one lastRelapse for which the ebb and flow of a long-Kept pain finally collapses into a PurpleHeart’s flat line; the emptied syringe,His private message in a bottle