Second Story

Book excerpt: When her Florida apartment is damaged by the ferocity of Hurricane Irma, Duhamel turns to Dante andterza rima, reconstructing the form into the long poem “Terza Irma.” Throughout the book she investigates our near-catastrophic ecological and political moment, hyperaware of her own complicity, resistance, and agency. She writes odes to her favorite uncle—who was “green” before it was a hashtag—and Mother Nature via a retro margarine commercial. She writes letters to her failing memory as well as to America’s amnesia. With fear of the water below and a burglar who enters through her second story window, she bravely faces the story under the story, the second story we often neglect to tell. Excerpt from “Terza Irma” I hoist my suitcase up the stairs, brace myself as I open the door, slip on water in the hall, and come face to face with my books, the white shelves drip- ping. I pull down Dante—the pages heavy, wavy as potato chips— then pat down the walls, trying to gauge where the leak’s come from—the apartment above? My ceiling’s dappled with beige clouds I’m afraid will burst, a descent of more indoor rain. I make my way to the condo office, to lament the havoc, ask for some help. My neigh- bors are in varied states of panic and shock, agitated castaways.