Click here to listen to Joanie Mackowski read this poem. A man loved a woman who was the eye of a storm. She swirled around their cottage at the curve of a stream

and kept a small calm in the palm of her hand,
as the tip of her shoe tugged the trees out from under

the sky, all black with the spans of turkey buzzards,
thunderheads heaping the horizon like suds.

And she loved him reciprocally, but he was trouble.
He sat, one oceanic hand spread out on the table,

the other on his knee, his muscular neck
turning as his eyes turned the face of the clock,

a broad smile bending his bony dome.
The rain came down. She remembered a time

he caught a tornado, tucked it behind her ear.
They'd strolled through a clearing, through lupine, shooting star,

briar, blue chicory, and up to a ridge
to listen while meadowlarks sang in the sage.