Samuel Day Wharton

Winter Storm

they keep pushing back
the rain’s arrival, but
it will come      & I will strain
every moment to hear it     
        & we will wait it out
under bridges      or in cars
or against convention
                              in the terrible open-
            ness of fields      removed from our-
selves, our senses, feeling
                                only that we must
           obey the strange      categories
that explain away weather
                                    tempest, cyclone,
           derecho      no single straight line
from one thing to another
                               no single
       shelter to seek     & finding that one
torquing wind that scents
                                 the air with wetness
          will be the cue      to bear witness
to the ways a world can
                               be both broken &
        refreshed in one       swift motion
& for me to retreat
                                   to the porch
          to watch the air      whip
the flags until they shred like leaves

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Samuel Day Wharton lives in Sacramento, where he makes wine & writes poems. Recent work has appeared (or will appear) in Malarkey's The Grift v. 2, Stone Circle Review, Wild Roof Journal, Does It Have Pockets & the engine(idling.