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Twisted oklahoma
by Gregg Shapiro
What does a tornado want? Your rippling skin, bent
hair. Lungs outside your body, shallow breath merging
with whipping wind gusts and dirty, smoky exhalation.
Debris so thick in your eyelashes that muddy streaks
roll down your tear-stained face. Your bones, limbs
warped into unfamiliar shapes. Farm animals dancing
in an upside down kick-line to music so dissonant
that deafening is a blessing. The tornado is a show-off,
an undefeated arm wrestler willing to accept any
challenge to lift the unliftable, raze what can’t be
raised. Hurricanes fear tornados, nameless name
callers, playground tormentors, the uninvited guest
who shows up empty-handed hours before the party
starts or long after it has ended, the hosts temporarily
tucked in until the fatal knock on the door. The door
is now a shadow, a sham. A shame it couldn’t stay
shut, ashamed of its splintered, shattered self. Windows
grit their glass teeth, grimace, rattle. Nothing is where
it was – not roofs and shingles, not walls or bricks, not
traffic lights or traffic. Tornados aren’t content with
simply misplacing, relocating or burying your house
pets or children. They prefer the hunt and seek,
solo or search party, the agony of disappointment to
the exhilaration of discovery. Tornados leave graffiti
on the scarred earth, scratch death threats in the soil
with car parts, tree trunks and branches, sheet metal
and wooden planks, pillars and posts. If you survive,
a heart-shaped bruise discolors your heart while you
dig through the rubble for anything that resembles
something else. Tornados watch from a safe distance,
dream up new acts of devastation, send unsigned
hate mail with no return address and postage due.