Elizabeth Morton
It will blow over
The storm-birds sing of an underworld, strangle-held by retaining walls
and purpling weeds. They fluster the sky, circle the vacant fields
like bodyguards, bother the cattle, spit shadows over the day grasses.
The clouds are dragged behind the wheels of an SUV.
The clouds are the shape of victims. A time-lapse of shame,
one milky figure mounting another, like that’s all there is.
The storm is another lifetime that passes us by. A predation
founded on counterfactuals. Above the clocktower, a lightning rod
heckles the destroyer. Time holds its breath between brackets,
chews the borage flowers and smooths the minds of slow animals.
It will not condemn the enemy. It will not metabolise a slur,
cussing the metaphysical from a place of routine grief.
The storm-birds know me for my ordinariness. My blunt skull.
I am a creature who resists chemistry. Punchlines skitter
from my surfaces. My rage is elemental but moves slow as guilt.
I appropriate the sunny-side of humans who have better things to do.
I take Love and run for the hills,
to bury it someplace iced-over and immortal.
The storm-birds move through me like I’m a haunted house.
I shudder myself awake. I shake the ghosts from the insulation fibre.
I spook the swallows from the chimney pot. I am the red-zone
of a Beaufort Scale. If I crouch in the crawlspace, it is not for life,
but for beauty – the collision of things on a metal road at night.
The gentle turning of a headlight towards the moon,
the blush of the dead-end’s fugitives. The storm that moved over us
like a miracle. Or the storm that moved us like a miracle.
The storm-birds cannot tell the difference.
and purpling weeds. They fluster the sky, circle the vacant fields
like bodyguards, bother the cattle, spit shadows over the day grasses.
The clouds are dragged behind the wheels of an SUV.
The clouds are the shape of victims. A time-lapse of shame,
one milky figure mounting another, like that’s all there is.
The storm is another lifetime that passes us by. A predation
founded on counterfactuals. Above the clocktower, a lightning rod
heckles the destroyer. Time holds its breath between brackets,
chews the borage flowers and smooths the minds of slow animals.
It will not condemn the enemy. It will not metabolise a slur,
cussing the metaphysical from a place of routine grief.
The storm-birds know me for my ordinariness. My blunt skull.
I am a creature who resists chemistry. Punchlines skitter
from my surfaces. My rage is elemental but moves slow as guilt.
I appropriate the sunny-side of humans who have better things to do.
I take Love and run for the hills,
to bury it someplace iced-over and immortal.
The storm-birds move through me like I’m a haunted house.
I shudder myself awake. I shake the ghosts from the insulation fibre.
I spook the swallows from the chimney pot. I am the red-zone
of a Beaufort Scale. If I crouch in the crawlspace, it is not for life,
but for beauty – the collision of things on a metal road at night.
The gentle turning of a headlight towards the moon,
the blush of the dead-end’s fugitives. The storm that moved over us
like a miracle. Or the storm that moved us like a miracle.
The storm-birds cannot tell the difference.
Biography
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Elizabeth Morton is a New Zealand poet and teller of tall tales. She has two volumes of poetry: Wolf (Mākaro Press, 2017) and This is your real name (Otago University Press, 2020). She likes to write about broken things, and things with teeth. Find her online at www.ekmorton.com.
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