Tornado Song
       

Unmoved as bathwater, I slept
while wind funneled and pitched
the roof from the neighbor's house.

She knuckled in a ditch,
her children sacks of sleep in her arms.

The next afternoon, I piled torn branches
in the burn pile while James Hull called and called.

We were ten. I hid in the corn crib
and flicked old kernels against its walls.
He stole a gold necklace for me.
When I gave it back, we never spoke again.

Grain trucks groaned with loads of cement
and steel, the neighbor's wrecked silo hauled away.

Years and then I saw him again,
smoking with the neighbor girl.
Our eyes met, two birds in a quick scuffle.

His life snapped shut when he hit
a telephone pole. No one shocked—

he was poor, fatherless, a drop-out,
his lips stinking of Jim Beam.
I wished briefly for that necklace,
14-karat heart on a chain, wished

I could smooth luck's furrowed spread.
I dreamt the neighbor's dresses still hung
on the line like happy, colorful ghosts.

I dreamt tornadoes, torn shingles,
rainwater pooled in bathtubs.
James Hull's note beneath my pillow,
then his moist hand in mine.

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Copyright © 2022 Amie Whittemore All rights reserved
from Salt Hill
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission