Ever wonder why those swirling cyclones
on the weather channel
get saddled with mortal names?
Perhaps we’re hankering
for a prescient metaphor—
hints to help us prepare
for that howling moment
when me-stories pry
like plywood
from our eyelash’d windows.
Perhaps, our soul reasons,
if I muddy the line
between dude and disaster
we’ll go for the third option—
stop resenting
the boring evacuation drills.
Crouch long enough
in our heart- basements
to see something
more dumbfounding than swing sets,
bicycles and spare tires
lifting suddenly
like a flock of birds:
Storm fronts—
fondly named—
are all we’ve ever known.
We’re like the weather man
glibly tracing
a frightening devastation:
The “Who-I-was-yesterday-ness”
lodged like a refrigerator
in the branches of each face,
Katrina’s, Emily’s, Ernesto’s
flattened by a puff
of logic.
Most alarming—
the bracing, upbeat attitude
as if the storm were still approaching.
The relentless mystical siren—
unheeded
(breath).
The softly lapping
sense of purpose
imperceptibly receding.
The eerie stillness.
Static electric chit-chat
sparking, desperate
for doom,
infatuation,
or some other
alien rapture.
