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Help Is On The Way

Collection

Hellicane: Poets Respond to Hurricane Katrina

We believed help was on the way I never believed the churches; Jesus is a myth, right?

City workers, the mayor would help us and so would the Feds In the night, crawling from an attic into a net

Me, grasping stinging threads of a thick rope in the dark night - Whuppph! Was this the end I rocked my child to sleep for?

Was this the ending? Way worse than a TV show ending? An anonymous end - me, wet itchy clothes, the dark... Now with the light descending

I want to think about the myth: Of me doing life differently than my mom and dad did - Or differently than those who ended up suffering or dead

As I bounce up to the copter, a star shines over New Orleans Hearing a garbled voice on the chopper radio - "10-4" I pretend

I'm back to my same job and neighborhood - just for a few seconds Then I remember who's leftâ€"clinging to air spaces in attics

Or baking on hot roofs, hoping help is on the way Then, as my mind drifts into waters of hurt, stink, and longing

I want to look back at that star...

'Are you OK, hun?' a high drawl touches my bent shoulders I heave in sobs, as if the voice was my late mother's...

'Sh-sure,' I stutter, 'th-thanks, r-really, thanks.' I whisper to New Orleans drifting - 'Help is on the way'

Citation

“Help Is On The Way,” Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, accessed November 3, 2026, https://hurricanearchive.org/items/show/26139.