Quiet cul-de-sac, I live ‘round your curve. I follow your arch and hop between rain puddles. When thunderstorms come, I imagine the nearby field of pampas muddied from flood. I’d like to run to that field during thunderstorms, but my feet might sink into its silt. I might live my entire life beneath the field of pampas grass and dust. Well, that’s why I’d like to run there.
Quiet cul-de-sac, I’m leaving you to spend some time in that field. I’m running to that zenith whose unified sky of flaxen, wispy feathers plucks to our wind. My feet, scraping and sinking. Tussocks and reeds chattering like rattlesnakes. Muffled gales, whirring. Murky lightning, rippled fire.
The thunderstorm swells into heat and evening sunlight pokes through the field’s plumes, submerging our bodies in orange magma we won't see for ourselves–your tongue licks at its caldera. The field is a sky.
Written by Shawn McNulty-Kowal
