Hurricane in August
What started as a dust of wet sky
gathers over the grill with stronger gusts,
so my wife tinfoils the meat and goes inside.
My daughters do not follow.
They lift their palms instead
and whistle to the sparrows
on the maple limbs, sheltered, safe there.
~
2005, an August you will not remember.
The rain kept on for days
and the dregs of a kitchen set
went floating down the frontage road.
The wind, a wild erasure
in the Gulf, tore every bit
of loose ply and tin from our home,
and the city spilled its brick and stone
like teeth broken in the street.
We packed our few belongings
and drove north. You slept
right through the storm, certain
of a father’s firm direction.
~
Even now,
you look at me for courage? or worse,
an answer? If it were only thunder,
I’d let you chase the sound of distant weather,
but that, somehow, is not my place.
I call you in. The rain has come to rage,
and you do nothing now, but spin and spin
while birds blow beautifully away.
Steven Brown is currently finishing his MFA at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Christian Science Monitor, Rattle, Albatross, and others. (slowmotionkate@yahoo.com)