Deluge

by g emil reutter

Beats of rain thump crescendos.

Wind builds as a string section

of an orchestra, swirls down

the avenue. Hydroplaning

squealing cars crisscross

visibility, reduced thickness

of downpours. Water table

rises. Ponding water streams

flowing between homes, deluge

overflows sewer. Water seeps up

through century old pipes and

walls.

Pump buzzes, water gushes

into laundry room tub. Pump, mop

mop and pump. A man with one eye

on a puppet string saddle, walks the

pipe, four cracks. Digger arrives

splits the floor with slug of sledge

hammer. Vibrations of jack hammer

rat a tat, bang, thud, bang thud.

Pulls the rotten pipe from the soaked dirt

places new iron in the floor. . . .

No more water in the basement, he

says.

Maker comes to bind up the floor

mix and mix, cement rises in mixing

tub, fills the holes, covers the pipe.

Thirty-nine feet, fill and smooth

smooth and fill and the water shall

not enter again.

Pump buzzes, gushes water

draining in laundry room tub. Water

has entered again. Pump and mop

mop and pump as water pours in

from foundation, settles on the floor

appears as a small swimming pool, pump

and mop, mop and pump, over and

over for seven hours as water pours

in, water table rising, bubbling inside

the basement.

Digger returns. All is good with the

iron pipe, as the water continues to

flow. We head outside to gutters creating

a stream between the homes, rising and

falling. Digger drops green. Watches dye

flow downhill. Lightning and thunder

spark the air, gusting wind whistles. We

are drenched. Digger departs. Time to

rest and when returning to the basement

Irish green glimmering in the new pond

on the floor where saturated paint peels.

Once again, pump and mop, mop and

pump until the storm rescinds, clouds

part, sunshine returns. 

g emil reutter is a writer of poems and stories. He can be found at: https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/