Hurricane Sandy: Saying goodbye to Death

The Break That Wasn’t

Four days passed in a hurricane’s grip,
Salt-stung eyes and cracking lips.
The lone swimmer, at last, finds pause,
A fleeting breath from nature’s claws.

Behind him, screams had ebbed to sighs,
Evacuees with tear-streaked eyes.
A hero’s mask left at the door,
Now just a man, worn to his core.

The truck hums low, its headlights weak,
As he drives through a town bruised and bleak.
Trees splintered like broken bones,
Transformers bursting with fiery tones.

No road lines guide his weary sight,
Just shards of glass and muted light.
The chaos mutters in the breeze,
Branches claw like ghosts in the trees.

His mind drifts far, an engineer’s trace—
“Why can’t they use reflective paint?
Would it endure this rain-soaked fate?”
He laughs, a brittle, hollow sound,
Then silence falls, the world unbound.

Compartmentalize. Seal it tight.
He’s mastered this in endless nights.
Lock away the screams, the cries,
Focus forward, blur the whys.

But as the wheels crawl through the flood,
A shadow floats in murky blood.
A body rests within the sewer’s maw,
Pale, contorted, a moment of awe.

He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t cry.
Just nods as though to say goodbye.
The radio crackles, static hums,
A new dispatch, the chaos drums.

No time to grieve, no space to feel,
He grips the wheel, his fate is sealed.
For in the dark, the lone swimmer knows,
The storm moves on, but never goes.

So he drives through fire and fallen wood,
Through shattered towns where none withstood.
No respite here, no final break,
Just one more life for duty’s sake.