Lightning Tree
When I was a child
pewterblue eyes round
as green walnuts, yellow pigtails
pulled tight in shredded rubber bands
I breathed up a world where I
lived in the storm, thunderheads panting like
mastiffs, tongues lolled over the lake, wind
secret as the monster under the bed
smiling, lightning fairy-dancing
into a forest
of wild branches;
I didn't blink for the peace of it
covering the screaming, the blows,
cleaning my face
of a toy's tears.
I breathed it in, petrichor
and the smell of power,
a brew of walking cobwebs
that piggy-backed me away,
a broken-eyed Dorothy doll
searching for Oz.
When I asked you to
kiss me like rain, you took me
up high on the lightning tree.
You had a web there, gunmetal strong
and sticky with grief. On the
edge of those sudden wires,
one foot already caught
you don't even know you're dead.
When you fight
to run with one eye blind,
and feel the tremble
coming closer
you learn everything
you lost
all
you never had
and that you
can never trust
a storm.
~July 2021
posted for Fireblossom
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Images: Lightning in West Texas © Ryan Smith Photography Fair Use
Broken doll, via Sunday Muse Fair Use
