T O R N A D O S E A S O N : A P R I L
O T T U M W A , I O W A
BY JENNIFER L. KNOX
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The evening sky leaks its pink opacity like spreading
stains on satin, and behind late April's curtain
waits a siren—ready to unfurl its red handle
like a ribbon an hour or so. It's not hooing yet, but soon
enough—can't you feel the barometer, dropping like flies?
Sure there's time for the siren—time enough the sky.
Black sycamore branches marble the opaque sky
with tangled veins, soaked and knotty, spreading
their wooden fingers wide, as two blue eyes in a black hat fly
off in someone else's Wagoneer—mom pulls the curtain
from the kitchen window (he'll be back soon
enough whose car was that please dear God can he handle
himself in town with all that money he can handle
himself can he handle the money himself), sees the sky
socked-in as a mitten, gravel spitting out under his bumper. Soon
enough there will be acres to untangle, some cold butter spreading
unevenly over day-old bread, ripping the bread—so the curtain
falls back across the kitchen window. How time flies
across late April? more like a winged lopsided weasel, it flies
around starved as radio waves, jiggles the handle
on the passenger side, pulls back the kitchen curtain
to let late April's evening pink light peek in with bloodshot sky-
blue eyes, hums tonelessly along with some crooner spreading
"Blue Velvet" through rooms as pressure drops a foot. Soon
Wagoneers will be untangled from ravines: too late, too soon
to untangle how and when exactly time flew and flies
(where did he get all that money)—ill-fitting lies spreading
over our ill-fitting lives like old stains (what boy could handle
that kind of money) on someone else's apron, someone else's sky
so mom, under a sky now going green, lets the curtain
fall back across the kitchen window, but under the curtain,
through the cracked caulk, late April seeps like CO2—soon-
moon-June on the radio begins unraveling Ottumwa sky
like someone else's sweater dangling a thread, someone flies
across the field in a rusty Wagoneer like thunder, like Handel's
"Messiah" sung in someone else's shoes, and drunk, tires spreading
the sky like a blue velvet curtain,
then spreading a bit of green around, soon
to fly, like April's thunderous song, off-the-handle.
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