a dark and stormy night,
no not a cliché, the real deal,
a real storm that you can feel,
eyes peeled, waiting for the next —

lighting spikes the sky, except
you keep missing it out of the corner of your eye.
you wonder why, if perhaps the sky rumbles the way your tummy does when it’s hungry.

it rains, for a while

perhaps the sky is hungry, cracking apart with flashes, like fissures through heaven
zig zag, a wait. a lag. and then the wave breaks
and then count the seconds

how close is it?

close enough to echo around the secret corners of your room
it reaches every one, harbinger of doom
a black crack, a churning, buckling, godless groan, you’ve never heard anything so big
it wants, it booms