House in Houston Heights

A Poem by Maya Shadid

Its wooden flesh was painted a rich scarlet hue.

Front steps sat upon the ground

And stretched toward an elevated porch.

They imperceptibly wore away 

Under the crushing 

Steps of each entrant.

Everything erodes eventually. 

Still, those steps were my 

Salvation

When the rain came.

Not gentle droplets of a summer storm,

But the acrid saliva of a creature that loomed in the sky,

Hungry for destruction,

So wicked that victims crafted 

A name merely to curse it:

Hurricane Harvey. 

The sinful titan couldn’t 

Be halted, shutting 

Down the city, taking 

It hostage. 

Precipitation was its weapon in this war,

And peering through the window in 

My house in Houston Heights, I watched 

The liquid ammunition pile in the streets,

Growing, Flowing,
Flooding.

There was a pool 

In my yard. It wasn’t there 

Before.

Yes, those steps were my salvation,

Creating distance between me and the water.

I shivered with anxiety as muddy fluid

Crawled closer and closer, flirting 

With the top stair of my porch.

If it rose any further, 

The flood would infiltrate my walls;

It had already taken my city.

I trembled and prayed.

Maybe by the grace of God,

Or perhaps by the grace of the architect who 

Chose our porch’s height,

The water didn’t enter my home; 

The House in Houston Heights

Was safe after all.

The next day, the ground 

Was once again visible.

Though the sky-beast’s wrath painted the horizon 

With obsidian vapors,

Its water had retreated into ditches,

And other neighborhoods,

Leaving ours with mere echoes of yesterday’s destruction. 

A mild trickle leaked 

From the clouds, sparking 

A notion in my parents’ minds: why 

Not foster some joy among 

The turmoil?

They dressed me and my siblings in rainboots and ponchos, 

And our family left our refuge:

The house in Houston Heights.

Our once perfectly manicured lawn was 

Muddied and scathed,

Earthworm carcasses intertwining 

With matted blades of grass.

Still, we swelled with 

Delight as we trampled 

Down the steps and into the yard,

Outstretching our arms toward the sky.

With bright eyes and blithe grins,

We leaped in puddles, sending cool splashes 

And lighthearted laughter into the air.

It was almost celebratory;

Harvey had pitied us, 

The worst had passed.

I began to dance

In that moment, the rain not my enemy

But my equal.

Moisture clung to my pruney skin,

The liquid hands of my partner guiding me,

Swaying me.

An exchange both intricate and jubilant.

But, 

Nothing beautiful is static.

A woman drowned in an underpass. 

She drove in, 

Never emerging on the other side.

That pit was one 

Of the places to which the flood retreated, 

Water lurking in shadow 

And stealth. Oh,

Small human,

Born of womb’s nourishing fluid,

Killed by earth’s muddy bile.

While my throat produced giggles,

Hers gurgled.

I found out much later,

While comfortable and dry 

In my house in Houston Heights.

An ignition of solemn guilt overtook me.

I seldom considered the other side of

Fate;

Luck and lack,

One man thriving 

While another rots.

This realization led

To a cascade.

Not everyone’s porch was high enough 

To avoid flooding.

Not everyone could hide behind 

Red walls and locked windows. 

Not everyone could look back at the destruction

And call it “Yesterday.”

For some, it was their final 

“Today.”

That which sways the passion of one man

Invokes the mortality of another.

Dancing, 

Dying, 

We’ll all have our turn.