POETRY
My FEMA trailer
by Gary Bloom in Issue Seven, November 2022
Early in the morning
I can hear my neighbor’s TV
Reverberating through the tin foil
Walls of her FEMA trailer
And into my own
Consciousness
Lying on the paper thin mattress
In my own FEMA trailer.
We are together
In a trailer park built
On the ruins of Katrina
And no matter what
They say this
Formaldehyde
Can’t be good
But it could be worse
And I know it
So I’m happy this morning
Listening to my neighbor’s
TV (It’s Regis and Kelly)
in my FEMA trailer
Where I can feel
Every gust of wind
And hear every sound
Where my home
Can be hitched to a truck
At a moment’s notice
And moved to higher ground.
© 2022 Gary Bloom
Gary Bloom
Gary Bloom grew up in Minneapolis and attended what is now Minnesota State University-Mankato, where he studied sociology. He has been a teaching assistant in a psychiatric hospital, a driving instructor for spinal cord injury patients, and a computer programmer for the U.S. Navy. His articles, photography, and poetry have been widely published in newspapers, magazines and websites, including Literary Hatchet, Liquid Imagination, Milwaukee Magazine, The Buffalo News, The Grand Rapids Press, Art Times Journal, and Black Diaspora. He lived in New Orleans for many years and now lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.