Oooklahoma

Photo by Nikolas Noonan on Unsplash

In the past two days
five people have asked me
what it’s like to be under
a tornado. I told them,
It’s like a silent movie
but with glass shattering,
wood cracking: Thick,
like a tree. In those days
I was a freight train.
So was everyone around
me. Hustled beneath oily,
green skies: Oklahoma supercells
When we crawled to the
surface from our concrete,
steel boxes, a man stood
where our homes
used to. Crumpled cars,
dead babies at his heels
He talked like God “Rebuild,
rebuild, re- . . .” I told
them, the people asking,
It’s like leaving home,
smiling at your mother
then returning
to find her blue, bloated
body and only the yellow,
bare bones of your
city still standing.