TORNADO FORMS
by Ellen Davis
Here, the sky is permanent
blue and my father and I
talk under a dome
large enough for giants. No one’s
on the island but us.
In the surrounding ocean are other
islands, scattered, visible.
Then the sky
starts folding. It folds like bolts
of drapery, like snow over snow.
The water spout tunnels
out of the sky, a building of light
and wind. We lie on the sand disk
as the waves make us
pitch and roll. Huddled
behind the abandoned
hull of a boat, we cling
to that husk and survive.
The storm recedes,
but in the backdrop of sky
small winds hover
and hiss, brew recipes for eclipses,
for sandstorms and avalanches, for islands
and the destruction of islands.
In the morning, my father says,
You’ve weathered the storm.
Or stormed the weather,
I think. But my dream says
there are multitudes of islands
and each little tornado
that forms on the horizon
takes aim at one.
Copyright © 2008 by Ellen Davis.