Tornado Drill

from Out With Lanterns, a daily poetry practice

For the people lost in the Texas floods, especially the children

In central Ohio, kids learned the difference 
between a watch and a warning. 

We groaned at the surprise drills during school, tossed 
our heads back, said, Ugh when the alarm rang out.

So boring to file out to concrete hallways, sit with our heads 
between our knees, stay quiet until the principal passed. 

My friend Sherri and I would start giggling, 
get shushed by our teacher Mrs. Carol. 

The principal would stalk by, shouting: Avoid windows, 
doors, and exterior walls. Heads down! This is serious, kids. 

I'd listen to myself breathing into my small body, 
secretly fearing that a twister ripping through my school

would change my life forever. I would never unhear the howling, 
the screaming, and I might be taken skyward by the pull of wild wind. 

I knew even then that nature did not discern between young and old,
innocent and experienced, that any of us could be swept up into the eye.

Photo by Nikolas Noonan on Unsplash