Storm Girl

as soon as she kissed me the storm front wheeled around (& something in the way her eyeshadow ran signalled the changing of the big new year tides the fishermen had warned us of down on the beach where her pet dog ran wild & her hand in my hair from here to eternity (the moments of compassion whipped palms surrendering their seeds to summer but back to her eyes in the dark (if i was there the waves climbed up my outstretched legs like a vine & there she was her kisses advancing & then changing shape one look was barometric so johnny took the pressure down & examined satellite maps a spiralling mass of fluffy white cotton as she removed my facemask & flippers (not the stun gun the water massed & heaved her arms surged around me whispering her own weather predictions in the conch shell of my ear i grew afraid of her shape- shifting in the midday dark & the palms were now parallel to the ground & calls came in over the walkie-talkies of evacuations power failures etc she pinned me to the beach between disappearing flags two rubber dinghies flashing past my cheek inside her mouth (the cyclone wheeled on its eye my hair stood on end horizontally crushed i was plastic in the invisible sun she rolled me on to my stomach & made like i was a surfboard paddled me out to sea our bodies one single arc to dip & fall over the now-unbreaking waves until at last she closed her storm girl eyes & the freak storm subsided leaving us floating there with our arms stretched out holding hands (two starfish in our own aquarium waiting for the rescue boat to come

Comments

Anonymous said…
"i grew afraid of her shape
shifting in the midday dark" Hope it didn't scare you too much. Beautiful poem DP.
3/23/2006 02:01:00 am
David Prater said…
Hi Charlotte, I think I meant shape-shifting ... (insert Luke Skywalker voice: "I'm not afraid!") - glad you like it.
3/23/2006 09:06:00 am
Nick said…
"You will be," *furrows brow*. "You ... will be."
3/23/2006 09:59:00 am
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