Pushing at a hinge on an intersection
suddenly the world screels open empties out its pockets
at the corner of Flagler and Duval the storm is rushing the block
like a young dog who delights in chaos the town is hers
she shrieks through streets to the harbour makes out of them hungry
tunnels of charged air a tumbling sound as if the land’s a carpet being
flapped
with hard slap demented head-butt
soon a mouth will grin with
missing teeth, its gap our gap
and on she rails, no home
to go to, wired, pulling out posts like pins from a new hem.
blank face
expressions of the shore eroded
the pen is writing down the storm the storm is a pen
jotting long sentences in a slanting hand to reckon by
/to be continued
Joanna Guthrie’s first collection, Billack’s Bones, was published by Rialto in 2007 and she recently completed her second collection, Water Person Kit. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Review, The Rialto; Poetry Ireland Review, Magma, etc. and her non-fiction writing in The Guardian. She is involved with Climate Cultures and Extinction Rebellion
