I remember thunderstorms
starting on TV,
the weatherman’s tension
palpable. thick electric air
conducted his excitement
in rippling currents.
blackouts came with every
single storm and only,
it seemed, in our neighborhood
with such regularity. I remember
my mother’s voice shaking quivering
windows with fruitless fury, Every
damn time! It’s like they know. They
know, pointing at my sister and I,
demanding agreement.
we would hide in the basement
when the sirens went off, and every
time my childhood rationality knew
this could be the time,
the time the roof
was flung miles away, the time
our lives were exposed in ruins
to neighbors and news crews. I
would throw every single stuffed animal
down the stairs in order of importance,
silently asking forgiveness
for those who would not make it.
I remember the way the trees
thrashed at cars and shoved each other,
all elbows and knees, the way the sky
was the greenish-yellow of bruises.
my cat held to my chest, worrying
over her food if our refrigerator
was found a corpse empty of innards.
watching the world disappear into gray
rain, I prepared gravely
for ill-defined endings.
and I remember coming up after,
power flooding into clocks
all blinking twelve, insistent, panicked,
and begging to be reset. the backyard
ripped into a rainforest
of dripping, mangled green.
it was more exciting
than anything.