Aftermath
I loved you how only a Midwestern
girl would love a tornado warning.
I didn’t want the sunshine; I
wanted wild, whirling,
in-the-moment April
tempests, and as the sirens howled,
I ignored them and kept on playing
in the damn rain like a muddy child who
was taught that the wind
couldn’t touch
the valley, and that
lighting never
struck the same place
twice. But your
overcast eyes tilted
my neck, and
static leaped from
jawline to collarbone.
And when you
finally passed over,
I learned that the
May flowers
weren’t
addressed to me,
and the cruel
anatomy
of the bolt-burnt
tree in my
peripheral
was a part
of a new
landscape
I had
to
learn.