Mary Ann Honaker
Severe Thunderstorm Watch
I’m in the sunroom waiting for the severe thunderstorm.
South & west of us it’s already hit: a man was lying on his couch
then found himself suddenly on his hands & knees
in the yard, his house a heap of planks behind him.
The tornado had tumbled the whole neighborhood away,
like dry leaves picked up and heaved by wind.
We’ve lost one of the tall pines that line the backyard
already this year, trees planted for privacy in a neat row.
There’s a gap like a tear in a clean shirt.
For months road crews worked on debeautifying
the roadways, hacking down every leafy thing beneath
or near a power line. Of course it must be done,
it’s simple math: less trees near lines as the storms
sweep & intensify means less time restoring power
after the next big storm. The hurried crews
didn’t bother with clean up, leaving the sawn
limbs and mangled trees in a smashed tangle,
then moving on. As the weeks advance, the leaves
of the felled trees brown and lisp in the wind.
On all the hills lie trunk after trunk of the dead
who didn’t stand through the last storm.
Their headstones are the circular clods of earth
yanked up with their roots when they tumbled,
fanned out behind them like a peacock’s tail.
*
We all know what it is, what it’s called.
We know it’s come and will worsen, worsen.
Still, all we know is the economics of land:
on a walk with my dad it was all he could speak of.
This land is cleared and flat but you can’t
get sewer in there, it’s worthless. This one’s
nothing but a steep cleft, water issues
all along the bottom. They want a lot
for this but it’s only good for grazing cattle.
I put a bid in for that lot, it goes
way back, but I bid too low, too late.
Clear the land for a tip top rate.
*
If you drive out of the towns, out of sight-line,
you’ll find them blasting the mountains faceless.
It’s already upon us, there’s nothing to do
but pile the trees and watch them burn.
Scrape and scrape the tender flesh of the hills
until we’ve scraped free every nickel we can earn.
*
The wind advisory is in effect. Bring in
your lawn chairs, your trendy little flags.
There’s a chance of hail, so park your car
under an awning, in a garage. It’s coming,
and nothing we can do will stop it now.
Mary Ann Honaker is the author of It Will Happen Like This (YesNo Press, 2015). Her poems have appeared in 2 Bridges, Drunk Monkeys, Euphony, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Off the Coast, Van Gogh’s Ear, and elsewhere. Mary Ann holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia.
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