The Storm

"certain airs, detached from the body of the wind . . . crept round corners and ventured indoors" Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Nothing stirred until the storm struck

the gable end, and the wind and rain,

duly spiked, split ranks, dispersed

in certain solitary airs, here and there,

some behind the fascia boards, under eaves,

yet more sliding down the concrete cladding

and finding passage past metal shutters,

boxed and sleeping sentry guards

with passive, sodden, corrugated faces.

And so such damage was done:

those airs coerced the brads from boards

and bolts from purlins, slid wet hands along

the papered walls, not blind and feeling

for the switch, but seeking out the curl

and lip of neglect; some airs in darker tones

refused to merely mount the stairs to link

hands with those skipping through

the roof space, ruffling the fiberglass, no

those violent airs preferred to pull

the rug from underneath the house,

collapse the stairs, slam them closed

like accordions on a winter Paris pavement.

How they whooped and howled, those upper airs,

suddenly accountable to gravity.

[And howl too did the master of the house,

sliding a hand across a sodden mattress,

stretching his arms towards an absent spouse

now drowning on the freshly planted lawn.]