First Wave


This night is deadly earnest.
Still, thick, expectant in silence.
Not a peep, not a click,
No wayward chirps, no croaks.
Hurricane Allison churns.
Deep in tropic waters
She spills her dismal veil
A thousand miles around her.
The sky is the ash of burnt charcoal,
A solid table of featurless cloud,
Pushing down, closing in,
Throttling the stars.
A mortician preparing the land.