Inkwell Journal

Googling Myself I Learn I Am a Victim of Hurricane Katrina

Claudia Burbank

The last thing I am said to have said is
Here boy here Grits.
Seven weeks eleven days later they discovered
me in the attic with a shoe in my hand.
What kind of shoe it doesn’t say.

I find a sister Eunice up in Pascagoula.
We may or may not have been close.
I find a husband Albert passed 19 years so it seems
I did for myself.
It comes as some surprise to know I have
four daughters –Chanel Cherise Rondelay Dolores –

(Dolores! How did that name get there?)
Grandkids galore. I must have loved them. They me.
Seems I was right with the Baptists.
Forty-two years singing choir. It tickles
to know I could really carry a tune.
All my life, apparently, I’ve been

a domestic, a word I never liked. Sounds
like a kind of dog. Loyal. Dumb.
I liked to hook rugs. Was a demon
for Wheel of Fortune. Made a mean gumbo.
As to whether I did or didn’t
favor purple take to fishing learn to juggle

there is no mention. Every year I grew
the biggest dahlias out front. I just put in
“Kenora Clyde” which was coming right along.
Then I drowned and rotted and wrote this.

INKWELL Magazine
Manhattanville College
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