pOem

The Dirty Side of the Storm

Death just misses you, its well-defined
eye and taut rotation land on
someone else. No need to study the sky

for signs or watch the cows—
not with satellite loops, infrared
imagery, reconnaissance flights shrinking

the orange cones of uncertainty.
If it makes you feel better, go ahead
and push pins through a brittle chart.

Your coordinates square neatly east
of the worst wind shear, lightning
strikes, and bursts of air.

All convection steers clear
of your splattered doorframe.
The Red Cross mobilizes elsewhere.

Take a good look at those oak roots
from a calm doorstep and wait.
The sadness is a surge carrying

all its debris back to you, a flood
that shoves clods of ants and snakes
through your walls and then

sits in your house for days and days.
This is the dirty side of the storm.
Would that Death had blown straight through.