Rashad, 18, Spill Cleaner

My uncle stood with his feet in the waves.
I couldn’t see where his eyes was lookin
cause the water was so vast.
The “nothing in particulars” he loved
to gaze at and think about couldn’t be
seen. Only the silhouettes of rigs
like storm clouds too far away to care about.
the heat was more important, nut
my uncle didn’t notice it too deep in peace
making himself feel older than he was
by reflecting.

Me and my sister ran down to the water
broke the silence like a pair of hurricanes
the peace in his face shattered like a stoned
windowpane, couldn’t hear over the storm we made.
Then he danced in our rain of sand and dirty surf
we kept him young for a few more weeks.

Us fighting on the back seat was the only thing
that wiped his tired smiling away, always temporary.

He dies two months later.

Hurricanes come in from the seas.
Oil turns the seas bloody, rolling on shore.
Oil sits on top the new waterlines.
Homes and bodies grow waterlogged, rot
black and oily on body bags
in parking lot hospitals
beneath sun and above the muck.

Now I stand where my uncle used to,
clean up the spill by
watching it from beneath a tarp
sweating in this hazmat suit,
praying that my gaze is lying
that the oil will get washed away between
blinks.

I want to put my feet in the water like he did.
But they pay me to do nothing.