This is a poem I wrote thirteen years ago around this time of year. The details were different, but that was a difficult year for some people, too. The weather that season also vacillated between monsoon-like and scorching. Accompanying my reading are sounds from a night at Ken’s Sushi and a backwards version of Dr. Zhivago’s “Lara’s Theme” as played by a music box owned by my mother.

Photo: “Dancing During the Flood” by C. Cha Ramone