Before the Storm

It isn’t supposed to rain here, but cicadas  

mute their hum and wind tips the mums 

on the porch. Think those flowers are done for? 

you ask. I sweep dirt from the steps, anchor the pot  

against bricks, confess our sins to wilted leaves:  

We haven’t watered anything in days. The time 

we’ll never get back crowds the sink. You ignore 

yesterday’s mess, tune the radio to something 

the child can dance to, call the dog again & again,  

but he cowers in a corner, ears cocked to danger  

we can’t sense. Nothing on the radar, you shrug,  

but yet ghosts the air like the matted leaves   

you wrestle from the gutters just in case. 

It’s quiet. Nowhere to be and nothing to do 

so we talk of the garden we’ll have someday,  

how our son will know the world by its roots  

and we’ll plan carefully, plant only seeds  

that will forgive us, raise a fence between the trees  

so the dog can run free. He’s still curled into himself  

like petals at dusk, listening hard as electrons knot  

in distant clouds and roots lengthen to sip what spills.   

Someday we won’t have to worry so much, I say, 

and you nod sharply, humid air whetting your chin 

like hope is needle enough to mend the breaking sky. 

* ​ * *

Tracie Renee Amirante Padal is a librarian, a Publishers Weekly book reviewer, and a poet who lives and dreams in suburban Chicago and writes for all ages. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Tracie’s words won First Place from Outrider Press three times and have recently appeared in The Eunoia Review, The Dirigible Balloon, Little Thoughts Press and East on Central. She's on X/Twitter as @librariantracie, and would love to talk to you about running, dogs, books, crossword puzzles, and her work-in-progress novel-in-verse.