print previewback NICOLE COOLEY
Mother Water Ash
Mother gone to ash river gone to drowned
I don’t live here anymore as my friends remind
Now I walk the edge of the Grand Central Parkway
Flushing Meadows Park World’s Fair gone dark
what is ashed and drowned what is abandoned
Mother gone drowned in her body the night
she died alone in New Orleans ashed her cigarette
then left us did I go dark when the N train lost power
on my way home while the burning threaded through
my baby’s hair city doused in ash impossible
to keep the outside out River Road beside my parents’ house
leads to Cancer Alley Mother gone but once with her
I drove through the drowned city two months after
the storm yellowed grass houses gone the road
a slur of empty is it any wonder I’ve followed her advice
to subtract myself Good daughter always till I’m not
did I go dark when she left me when will my daughters
while my mother’s mouth is all slick black feathers 
Mother Water Ash
New Orleans Love Poem
Sixteen Years to the Day Another Hurricane Reverses