Tornado Berlioz

Sirens yowl from the main campus
Rattle my windows
Cindy watches the television in the
Basement where we camp, and
When Spencer asks a question she
Hushes him with a hiss.

They will wait out the tornadoes
For maybe two or three hours
Before they go to bed. I will sleep
In my hallway with the dog
Unwillingly smooshed in the
Crook of my arm.

In Alabama I know already
Houses were flattened
People were sucked out of windows
And tossed like frisbees into the wind.

I'm not worried.
Maybe I should be, but I'm not worried.
Instead all I can think about
Is Aunt Sylvia, the tiny television perched on
Her knees, and no color in her face.
She watched the footage they aired and re-aired.

We were safe in Baton Rouge,
Crowded, but safe. But the thing is, nobody knew.
We waited to know how high the black
Mold would creep, when we could go home.
In the thick, thick air for weeks
My Aunt Sylvia watched the tiny television
Come in and out of static, and if anybody
Talked too loud she would hush them with a hiss,
Completely unable to stop waiting and listening.

The weatherman says we are in the clear
A mere four hours later,
Not even long enough to give it a proper name.
So I name that time in the basement
With the symphony of hail on the roof way above us
And the wide television and Cindy's hiss
And the vestiges of Aunt Sylvia and static

All this I have named Tornado Berlioz.
He's a palimpsest of that violent woman,
Who took her time coming and outstayed her
Welcome, who left bruises blooming on
Our walls. Bridging six years, Berlioz
And Katrina do a two-step through
Birmingham and Johnson County and
Through my mind again.

Red Beans and Rice

You cook the vegetables down
So you can hardly tell anymore that
You're eating bell pepper or onion.
Call them vegetables
So they count for greens.
Let's not lie, though, because what we're
Really interested in here is the
Andouille and salt-pork,
The vinegar and the tony's.

Chop the onions, bell pepper, garlic.
If you put the fan by your face
It blows the onion scent away
So you only cry a little.

Chop the onions the way
Your mother does: inefficiently and
With a knife that has seen better days.
Hear your father remind you
Of the Holy Trinity, which in
Your home has garlic instead of celery
Because celery doesn't taste like anything anyway.

Mince the garlic, dice the bell pepper,
Chop the onions, wait for the
Salt-pork. The red beans are an
Excuse for the andouille and a
Mask for the vegetables.
If you add tony's at the beginning
And vinegar at the end,
Your grandmother approves
From no matter how many miles away.

Breadth

On my side table, Sarah's painting is lovely in its frame
Two figures, a woman and a cow, look up
Towards their only option, towards the crescent moon
There is a way out
Yes, the two of them are going to jump

As though neither knows that she is surrounded
By four strips of painted wood
And the galaxy beyond is my living room
With other paintings hovering on the walls

I gaze at the artwork, at the walls so attentively decorated,
At the books--gateways to infinite worlds--and at the window
Two smudged panes bashfully standing between me
And the skies so wide I can see my breadth