Approaching Thunder

Let's assume about the body
that after applying enough pressure
it could, same as the cottonwood,
or the limbs of that damn box elder,
the one our neighbors kept calling

a weed; how that night, the worst
of the summer storms spread its fingers
across the little piece of earth and air
we thought we owned, how it took
each tree by the throat and turned.

Yes, I remember the first night
I guilted you into making love,
how the color of the stone changed
in your eye each time I touched;
how silence rose from your skin,

began to accumulate above our heads.
And for hours we laid still, listening
to the wind opening and closing
its purple fists. And come morning,
we took an inventory of all we'd lost.

Copyright © 2008 Amaud Jamaul Johnson All rights reserved
from the Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission