where the sidewalk ends (now)

Ottawa flooded in August. Given that the town is situated at the juncture of the Illinois and the Fox Rivers, it could have been a lot worse than it was. Still, the water covered the downtown parks for several days and Mom and Dad's basement had over 1,000 gallons of water pumped out of it.

a minor flood
a hula hoop is hovering
inches above the glazed concrete.
corrugated cardboard swells and softens to irrelevance, loosing
among other things:
1. an engineering textbook copyright 1973;
2. Evangelism Explosion flash cards written on pastel index cards in 1988;
3. Spanish 2 notes translated from the back row in the fall of 1994.
the knowledge one family hoped to soak in
soaks up the water and
equations, proof texts, conjugations patterns break a part
in a small, pulpy sea of humanism.







1 and 2) a park is under there somewhere; 3) our rugs drying in the sun while the neighbor's furniture airs out.