Weathering ★★★

We hadn't intended to have a hurricane party
But the morning after we danced and drank
and fell asleep in piles on couches and blankets
the storm hit.
Breakfast was soda and chips
and leftover Thai food.
We stood on the porch
wearing yesterday's clothes,
best jackets,
and swim trunks,
watching the rain come down in sheets
flooding the roads
and making great spinning gyres
that came over the hoods of passing cars.
And above it all, ominous
was the distant wail of a siren
and a disembodied voice
telling us to stay indoors.
It wavered in the wind
and seemed to come from everywhere
and nowhere
all at once.
The storm would thicken or break
as its arms passed over us
allowing us brief moments of respite
in which to rush to the car and
like valiant warriors
defying death itself
drive to get fast food.
Our return was met triumphantly,
and we sat and ate our spoils
doing our best to mourn that
they gave us the wrong order
and forgot the straws.
We laughed together,
with eyes bright,
as the storm washed us over,
and finally, as the weather broke,
we all went to our respective homes
driving highways filled with fallen branches
spying here a lost lawn chair,
there a rubber ball
and of course the water,
always everywhere,
in great murky pools
that invaded roads, ditches, and parking lots,
as if we had come back
to a different place
than the one we had left.