"The Twister"
I. Pets
Kate shoves the dog inside
Inside the cupboard
The cupboard where the pots go
Where the pots go when they're dry
And they're dry and the dog whimpers
Whimpers but he'll be safe
Safe in the cupboard
With the pots
Kate in the cellar
With the cat
Who couldn't be left
Left in the cupboard
With the dog
They'd kill each other
So the cat had to come with her
With her safe in the cellar
But Martin would understand
Understand that she had to leave the dog
Leave him in the cupboard
Martin will understand
The roof rips off
Sometime between two and three
Three hours before Martin returns
To a hole in the ground
Where his house used to be
He pulls up in the truck
The truck with a bad wheel
On the passenger's side
And sees his house
Sailing gently amongst the clouds
The clouds hundreds of feet
Above his head
The dog runs out to greet him
Greeting him involves nipping at his ankles
Till Martin picks up the dog in his arms
And carries him into the hole
As if the house is still there
And when it falls back down into the hole
Several hours later
Martin will be sitting there
Holding the dog in his arms
Wondering where Kate and the cat were
When the twister hit
II. Children
Lula-Belle won't get off the swings
She swings until she's over the bar
The bar goes underneath her
And then she feels air
And seconds later
Sand grazes her feet again
And she sails back up into the sky
Brody gets sick watching her
Because swing sets make him anxious
And Kate tells him that's fine
Because lots of things can make you that way
Like when the air gets electric
And your hair goes straight up
Even when you're not upside down
Like Lula-Belle is right now
Two hours later the swingset
Will be flying through the air
And land in Benson's pond
A few miles away
With Lula-Belle feeling lucky
That she knows how to swim
Because otherwise she might have been the first girl
Or even the first person
To drown during a twister attack
Brody will be curled up
Next to the coats of his classmates
Who are in the basement of the school
Crying and calling their mamas
On the cell phones they got for Christmas
Brody's cell phone is in Lula-Belle's pocket
Because she's so pretty
And she wanted to borrow it
So she could call her friend Sissy
When she went over the bar
Brody hides the class gerbil in his pocket
And the little creature feels the tug of the wind
As the windows in the classroom shatter
As Brody's teacher does another head count
And realizes she's been counting the Fratner boy twice
And that Brody is missing
As Brody sails out the classroom window
And lands on the see-saw outside
Luckily the one in the air
And not on the ground
Or he might have been killed
Martin will pick him up hours later
And Brody will ask if the dog's okay
Prompting Martin to say--
'Well, the dog's okay, but..."
But Brody won't listen after that
Him being too upset
Thinking Lula-Belle got carried off
And the swingset with her
III. Parents
Una got the man across the hall out first
An hour before she had removed Guerna
Who couldn't speak English
But kept saying something
That either meant 'Thank you' or 'Fuck off'
Una didn't care or know which
She wheeled out Bette and her sister Marguerite
And wondered how people got such fancy names
In a run-down old town in the Midwest
And was upset with herself
For having a name that wasn't Mary Ann
Or Jane or Jolene
Something simple like that
She had been at the nursing home all day
Wheeling people into the pond
Because everybody knew that twisters
Didn't go over water
And there wasn't any time to get somewhere safe
Because who knew what was safe
And what wasn't
Hours earlier she had tried calling Kate
But her daughter was known to panic
And she'd probably done something stupid
Like hidden herself in the cupboard
With all the pots and pans
Like an idiot
She didn't want her daughter to die
But if she had to die
She certainly didn't want her dying
Surrounded by cookware
And the thought made her angry
Una carried Mr. Lox
And let him float on a sofa cushion
She pulled off the ratty old sofa in the lobby
Of the Potonac Nursing Home
And it was big enough to support the little man
So much so that he smiled when she put him on it
And even used his walker as an oar
So he could get to the middle of the lake
Where Bette and Marguerite were doing synchronized swimming
The showoffs
Una could have been in the pond with them
She was older than some of them
But she still had her senses
And her arms were still strong
So strong that whenever the man across the hall
Wouldn't eat his potato casserole
She'd arm wrestle him
Wagering that if he lost, he'd eat
And if he won, she'd let him grab at her
Without slapping his hands away
And she always won
Except when she didn't, on purpose
Because she wanted to give him something to live for
Pretty soon everyone was in the pond
And when the twister it
It was like being on a rollercoaster
But one that was going on all around you
So once again all the residents
Felt like they were seeing life
But not really a part of it anymore
Una was on the shore
Just dangling her feet in the water
And she reminded herself to call Kate
As soon as she had everybody back in their rooms
Once the storm had passed
IV. Friends
Four hours after leaving Dandy's
Carla still couldn't tell
If she was satisfied with her purchase or not
And she thought of going back
And trying on that red number
One more time
Before someone else snatched it up
The glass ceiling in the mall
Shattered above her
In such a way
That Carla almost thought it was raining
And she wondered to herself
How they managed to make it rain in the mall
But truth be told
She didn't think too much of it
As it was possible to do anything nowadays
Kate couldn't be persuaded to go shopping
Not today
Not with a twister coming
Silly Old Kate
Who was not older than Carla
But who Carla called Silly Old Kate
And with no objection from Kate
Or anyone else for that matter
The glass stuck in her hair
And on in her clothes
And it snuck into her shopping bags
And lodged itself into her purchases
Which gave her even more reason to return them
People were screaming
But Carla walked calmly back to Dandy's
And explained the situation
As the salesgirl listened
Or seemed to
But really was just in shock
Because she realized
That she might die in Dandy's
Not just her workplace
But her own personal vision of Hell
When the wind entered Dandy's
It lifted up Carla's skirt
The skirt too small for her
And she nearly fainted from embarrassment
Even though nobody was left in the store
But her and the mortified salesgirl
She had enough sense about her
To jump on top of the salesgirl
Sending them both under the counter
As a mannequin came flying over their heads
And crashed into a perfume display
Making the entire store
Smell like a cheap hooker
Carla and the salesgirl stayed there
For what seemed like hours
Until Carla was so exhausted from shopping
And the other crises of the day
And the salesgirl still in shock
That both drifted off into a kind of sleep
Keeping each other warm
And kept warm by the expensive clothes
Now ruined by water damage
And the violence of the twister
But still effective
Though non-retailable
As they lay on top of the two women
Serving a simpler purpose
Than originally intended
V. Siblings
Beth James pulled up to the house
Or the hole
Depending on what you'd call it
Forty-one hours after the twister
Passed over Topeka
And landed somewhere in Tennessee
Impossible though that seemed
To the meteorologists
And journalists
And everybody else
Beth James didn't care
She just wanted her sister
The pond had been drained
Because now it was full of swing sets
And old people
The mall was destroyed
But Carla was a hero
She'd saved a young salesgirl
Kept her warm
With body heat
And a cashmere scarf
That somehow managed to wrap around both of them
Thank God for a waif-obsessed society,
Thought Beth James
The hole was three stories deep
Which seemed odd
Since the house had only been one story
And as Beth James approached
She saw the dog running up and down a ramp
That had been erected
So that the family could get in and out of
The hole
Brody was sitting in his new room
Which consisted of several planks
Nailed together
And placed about a story down
That could only be reached
By a rope ladder
Brody found the whole thing fun
It should be noted
Beth James had coffee with Martin
In the new basement
Which was so far down
You could barely see the sun
Even as it beat down on you
Burning your face
He wouldn't talk about Kate
Or the cat
But to say that they would have been happy
To have gone together
Beth James would not accept that
Her sister could still be alive
There were other ponds
Other malls
Other cashmere scarves
Their mother had saved an entire retirement home
And she was well into her seventies
How could her sister not manage
To take care of herself and a measly cat?
It seemed intolerable
Beth James climbed out of the hole
Not getting any answers from Martin
She blew a kiss to Brody
And resolved to call her mother later
To update her on her daughter's alleged demise
And also to return a parka to Dandy's
It didn't look the same when she got it home
And tried it on in front of the mirror
That had been smashed in the twister
So that it now looked like a funhouse mirror
Everything twisted and distorted
Now everything seemed like that
Like the world was being viewed through a broken mirror
And Beth James didn't know who to complain to
Or whose fault it was
Maybe God's
Maybe Martin's
Maybe one and the same
When you think of God and a husband
And who's supposed to do what
She drove away
Still not ready to cry for her sister
Because the air was still electric
And maybe that twister would come back
And return a few of the things
It had borrowed
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