1.
I was waiting tables at Pizza Hut when a tornado tore through,
pulled up one tin roof corner, uprooted the magnolia tree
lower branches worn shiny and smooth, plywood treehouse
collateral loss. I never imagined devastation
could be so precise. After the storm – humidity cleared,
power out, so many stars, more than I had ever seen,
spilled like salt across the sky.
2.
We affirm this marriage is irreparably broken.
Breaking broken. Broken open. I am jewels
of shattered car windows. Scrubbed clean and debris
strewn, barometric pressure dropped, clouds gone,
cold but open, filled with stars.
3.
Squeal of brakes and skid, time suddenly liquid
expanding, parenthesis of days before impact
4.
After Katrina, my friend told me she shared water
with strangers, each boat pressed into service, crisis
dissolving barriers. My life is now sinkholes
swallowing cars and kids on bikes, dogs and dishes
photos and drinking glasses and tiny spoons. I was
water, flowing underground through sleepless nights;
I ate away our foundations, and we tumbled
into the gorge. We fell in and down and through.
