ISSUE TWELVE | SPRING 2019
Our home on top of cinderblocks
and some animal underneath wakes me
when it steals out nocturnal through
the tears in the skirting I can see
it grinning, its hands.
Tornado sirens ring the air all spring
useless to us, mocking
no basements, no cellars. Mom bluffs
that the bathtub’s safe, dry:
she tucks us in.
*
To stay indoors
too long means peeling
back the wallpaper for the sharp
tongue of glue beneath:
put me in the corner and I go just
cross-eyed. I shift my weight
I hum humming siren I sing
to myself on the swing set
to the pattern of the poles slamming
aluminum back down down
on the downswing and I sing
country songs I know from the radio
the ones about lightning
wild horses
Tara E. Jay is a poet from Indiana, currently living in the metro Detroit area. Recent work can be read in Nashville Review, BOAAT Journal, Whiskey Island, The Journal, and elsewhere. She grew up in trailer parks.
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