Tornado Weather
Everything I could keep safe, I did. But fear does not end with the storm. It grows limbs, traces its stone index finger from my lip to the back of my throat, drags me, quarry, for a gem, or a keyhole to unlock the mountain. Logic abandons the valley. Dandelions evacuate my heart. I don’t want to be a child anymore. I don’t want to nurse these hysterical roots. After the storm, the live oak never fell, but wore a scar which corkscrewed the entire length of its trunk. Peeled and orange and slick, alight in the overwhelming darkness.