storms

the wind’s blown stars to powder in the sky’s blue
so the morning’s pale and clear, soft as breath,
those are storms’ leavings,
these horizons swept clean.
      we fill, we empty
      we connect and retract
      and sometimes each dream, every cell
      has you in it.
i’ve had it both ways, been the rock, been its hollow
      (dreaming of light and translucence
      dreaming of sleep and its darkness)
and when the wind woke me, i saw you there blowing
and the clouds filled my vision
and my eyes lost the sun.
when the wind soothed me, my skin felt your hands,
a soft rain on dust, settling.
      we fill, we empty
      we blame and forgive
      and the storms unloose rocks,
      not a window survives.
my brother heard thunder, shale cliffs exploding
      (a desert child knows how a deluge begins.)
we’d run open windows as the doors slammed around us
and the rooms filled with hurricanes
and our bodies were lungs.
i tell other storms stories, of you, of us,
      we fill, yes, we empty
      we trust and suspect
      and sometimes, clear mornings,
      we wake lost and smiling
that night wind downed trees.
hail studs asphalt, the sky’s shards.
and us? we’re apocalypse, all big band and thunder.
and then we’re this quiet, this thick dust, this silence
we’re this bare sky
this vision
this breath.

—Donna Frazier