Naomi Thiers, one poem

After Tornado Warnings

Rain, banshee winds, stuttering lightning

slashed the sky all night. An hour ago,

all the drama stopped. Disasters slunk home

not having broken a single window.

When I went to take out the trash just now,

the sky was smooth and rich as an altar cloth,

the air warm, the stars high, bright, vivid

and a full moon stood above my building

white and strong as your hair, my love,

solid as your word, broad and lovely as your back.

And I stood on my steps looking up, wondering

that after all the lashing, high winds, wails of my decades

and after, really, accomplishing so little,

I was given you.

Naomi Thiers grew up in California and Pittsburgh, but her home is now Washington, DC. She is the author of three books of poetry, Only The Raw Hands Are Heaven (Washington Writers Publishing House), In Yolo County, and She Was a Cathedral (both from Finishing Line Press.) Her poetry and fiction have been published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Grist, Potomac Review, Pacific Review, Sojourners, and many others. Her poetry has won awards from the Evangelical Publishers Association and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She works as an editor for Educational Leadership magazine.