After the flood I think about grief. 

Lisa Woods

My dad tells me everything in my aunt’s house 

was picked up and moved by the water.

 

I don’t know why I never thought about things floating.

 

He says it’s all tangled 

nothing where it was before – 

refrigerator on its side

floors buckling

everything displaced

smelling like an old wet shoe – 

for now. The mildew hasn’t started yet.

 

They’re just gonna have to start over

completely. 

 

Grief is just like that I think: 

walking around in the same skin

nothing inside where it used to be.

Originally published in Switchback, Hindman Settlement School 2026

Lisa Woods is a theatre artist based in Lexington Kentucky. She has performed her solo memoir-poetry play Thread and Bone at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, The Waterworks St. Augustine, and the Chicago Fringe Festival where it received the volunteer choice award. She teaches Acting at The University of Kentucky.