For the past 10+ years, I’ve sent work to Passager, a journal for art and writing by people over 50. They always have a beautiful cover!

I’m a slow writer. The poem I have in the current issue began as a response to the 2016 Pulse Nightclub murders in Florida. Then the summer rains began, and it seemed the storms would never end.

I submitted the poem at the beginning of 2020. Little did I know how Florida and her people would continue to suffer.

Here’s the poem:

More Rains in Store for Florida

Thunderstorms train west to east

across our fucked-up spit of land

and drag the gorgeous Gulf of Mexico

behind them through our seaside towns

and mangrove swamps as if The Gulf’s

a girl who oughta meet the warming,

rich Atlantic. As if the storms can

end our blood-soaked story with

a wedding. It’s not a romcom. Rains

like these have never washed away

the lynching trees, the prison cells,

the children bleeding in their schools,

the nightclub’s bullet holes. But maybe they

can level us. Flat as the face

of a lake, as the skim of water on a just-

rinsed plate. A flood, a dove, an even start.