Spinning Red and Black and Purple Twisters Strike Bare
Black and purple tornadoes whipping through
and fields of meadows left in the wake struck bare.
Branches snap and twirl.
Among stones and broken glass -
Red front door is wedged between
Wooden shutters – inside now the outside
Leaving gas stoves leaking.
Into the broken air it seeps
Matchbooks and cheap lighters lose their flint and nerve is lost
as loved ones search the debris looking for their sweet flesh to embrace.
Blue and red lights flash and sirens blare
from the mouths of babes shrieking cries
and dogs whine trapped under a devil lock.
Mice and men they've all become.
Looking side to side, up and down.
Hands rose high –
Blame they talk -
Justice they mutter.
They curse and then
Indignant they begin to take.
Looting, searching under things
more glass breaks
and little old ladies pull out their hair twisting its straw-like silver.
Pushed to the side into
The skeletons of homes and trees,
and gardens ripped of herbs.
The tornado has turned red.
A broken bench she turns over
on the corner of "Him" and "Hope"...
She rights it.
She sits down
Her billowing skirt
soft between her legs.
White and lacy -
She lays her head down.
She hopes she sleeps and dreams,
in her slumber;
Salty, bitter.
Seeping lashes,
Darkened with remnants of what
She thinks makes her pretty.
And she wishes she hadn't burned
all of his pictures.
