Night-storm
Then, the flood: flash. Side of road overwashed
as we are washed over. Swept. Wind is the broom
and we the debris. Unnecessary as dust or crumbs.
What name can we give to this occurrence? Call it
natural. Disaster. Or just a Thing That Happens.
Not that the name means much to us once we drown
in it, sucked under and curled into water’s embrace
whether sea or river or the lake become enraged
by thunderous sky or thunderous quaking crusts
the planet [they say] possesses. Loose scutes or
scales. Loose bark, like a tree. Pieces of slate
shorn sideways. Shear. Water. A species of bird,
Calonectris, that touches earth only to breed.
They skim sea. We cannot. We tumble under, breath
withheld until we can no longer wait and inhale
water. Absent our past gills, we inundate our lungs.
The crash of a body blasted from surf to shore.
Gasping. Thus I waken, shaken with sobs, damp to
the core, bruised, stiff, coated in mud and sand.
I wonder. All that inside me. As though I could know.
Sense the absence after the dwindling and oblivion.
Or is it creativity–imagining swell and loss?
Which may be nothing. Nothing like this dream.
~
Today marks the halfway point in my challenge to myself to write a poem a day for National Poetry Month. Is it getting easier yet? (No.)
ann e michael 
