Surviving a Tennessee Tornado
Static cackled while I waited
to hear if we had survived.
It was a slate-colored sound.
It grated my skin, tore hunks
from my flesh. We crouched
in the basement, away
from the bladed sky.
The radio snickered as I crept
to the small, high window
waiting to be crushed.
Static mocked my patience,
hissing like ocean foam
until we reached the limit of batteries,
until all we could hear was absence.
to hear if we had survived.
It was a slate-colored sound.
It grated my skin, tore hunks
from my flesh. We crouched
in the basement, away
from the bladed sky.
The radio snickered as I crept
to the small, high window
waiting to be crushed.
Static mocked my patience,
hissing like ocean foam
until we reached the limit of batteries,
until all we could hear was absence.
There Are Gods Waiting
I have not been to church on Sunday
in many years. I find my divinity
elsewhere, driving without direction
to greener spaces older than chapels.
On a road with no sign, phone off
and tucked away as I pull over
beside fallen fencerails to consider
a barn aged into disrepair. The barn
is hollow, a home for shadow
and rust, but in its youth must
have reigned loudly over horses,
standing broad and firm, a cathedral
of summer ensuring passers-by
that all is saved, bearing hay, keeping
rain from rotting the feed. The planks
have faded the way a memory does,
the way my hair has, from dark
auburn, to blonde, to gray. In 2015
I fell ill and found myself nude
in nothingness, darkness complete
and cold. The infinite plane held
no walls. I cowered, crouched,
something approaching in the deep
black, too large to comprehend.
I do not think this was a dream.
The dark maw of the open barn
leads to the scent of wood-rot
and the prowling eye-shine
of feral cats, calls to me the way
only corners of Appalachia can.
The not-dream is why I never
cut the engine, or set foot outside
the silver Jeep Liberty on Sunday
drives to far Kentucky corners,
even when the camera calls.
I know there are old gods waiting,
disguised as derelict barns.
Colleen S. Harris earned her MFA in Writing from Spalding University. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her poetry collections include The Light Becomes Us (Main Street Rag, forthcoming 2025), Babylon Songs (First Bite Press, forthcoming 2026), These Terrible Sacraments (Bellowing Ark, 2010; Doubleback, 2019), The Kentucky Vein (Punkin House, 2011), God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark, 2009), and chapbooks That Reckless Sound and Some Assembly Required (Pork Belly Press, 2014).
in many years. I find my divinity
elsewhere, driving without direction
to greener spaces older than chapels.
On a road with no sign, phone off
and tucked away as I pull over
beside fallen fencerails to consider
a barn aged into disrepair. The barn
is hollow, a home for shadow
and rust, but in its youth must
have reigned loudly over horses,
standing broad and firm, a cathedral
of summer ensuring passers-by
that all is saved, bearing hay, keeping
rain from rotting the feed. The planks
have faded the way a memory does,
the way my hair has, from dark
auburn, to blonde, to gray. In 2015
I fell ill and found myself nude
in nothingness, darkness complete
and cold. The infinite plane held
no walls. I cowered, crouched,
something approaching in the deep
black, too large to comprehend.
I do not think this was a dream.
The dark maw of the open barn
leads to the scent of wood-rot
and the prowling eye-shine
of feral cats, calls to me the way
only corners of Appalachia can.
The not-dream is why I never
cut the engine, or set foot outside
the silver Jeep Liberty on Sunday
drives to far Kentucky corners,
even when the camera calls.
I know there are old gods waiting,
disguised as derelict barns.
Colleen S. Harris earned her MFA in Writing from Spalding University. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her poetry collections include The Light Becomes Us (Main Street Rag, forthcoming 2025), Babylon Songs (First Bite Press, forthcoming 2026), These Terrible Sacraments (Bellowing Ark, 2010; Doubleback, 2019), The Kentucky Vein (Punkin House, 2011), God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark, 2009), and chapbooks That Reckless Sound and Some Assembly Required (Pork Belly Press, 2014).
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