The day before the houses sank beneath the waves
There was an invasion of monarch butterflies.
Streets blazed in beating bronze.
Air shuddered like molten metal.
Trees turned to sunlight. Roofs fluttered.
Pulsing above the chimneys, they made a cloud;
Everything darkened. Warning:
North central county under a yellow alert
Until ten o’clock tonight.
But the monarchs, passing, passing
Were not stayed in their flight.
Next day the houses sank beneath the waves.
First the foundations, lapped by the oily tide;
Then lintel, window frame, brick, eaves, tile, slate.
Now in the watery light wave after wave
Rolls overhead, crests, passes, and subsides.
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