Sonic

from Out With Lanterns

Lately, I have found myself standing 
still at the front window, shaken, like 
one might feel after a sonic boom. 

I’m there, on the crest of that burst 
of sound and energy and violence, 
watching it wave out past the horizon,
my hair blowing straight out, horizontal
around my still, shocked, steely face. 

Sometimes an image comes 
so vividly to me, it’s like a movie,
and all I can do is write it down, 
try somehow to make sense of it later. 

A sonic boom happens when something
moves faster than the speed of sound.
I wonder if, at the end, when the
memories all rush in before that one
final breath, that’s what it sounds like. 

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash