I could
          describe the storm.
Its completeness. The scenery of its impact-
                        the devastation
                                           or sketch,
in detailed imagery,
         a picture
                                           of the calm that came before, parading, flaunting
an illusion of peace and
           safety.
Tell you that the
sun illuminated
                       dewy grass, and the sky was bluer than blue-
                                                  than usual.
That the
    air was 

          warmer.
That for just a minute, every
living creature and
               act of nature held its breath.
That there
was a hush just before the operatic swell.
That for a fleeting moment,
the planet stilled
before it tilted
before the meteor hit.
And it was chaos and the picture was not pretty.  

Do you want
                    to hear about the
smear of people struck lifeless where they stood, about
                            the pooling blood, sticky red, where their heads fell against seared

                                                                     rocks, their bodies tossed with force and 

                                                                                then the corpses, laying in an
               apocalyptic, barren landscape for days on end?

I could draw
you in this way and hook you with harpoon of view and speak for pages of what it

looked
like,
make you queasy from the poison in my pen, and all
                                              the power wielded in a story.  I could haunt with
                                                        words, foreshadow what you know is

coming
but I think you’ve heard all this before.  I think it’s worn.  And this
      is just a metaphor. And what it felt like is more my

             specialty.

So I want
             to tell
you what happened.  Before and
           after.  I want to
                tell
you that it was unavoidable and had there been a warning, still it could not have been prevented. 
I need to tell
you the price we paid, simply for believing
in the picturesque – in the fairy tale,
for not
noticing the side streets
littered along the way, or the solemn mockery of the ornamented, bawdy lawns- the pink flamingos
                       stuck lopsided in the sod, or how the sheen on the green of the grass was strangely bright – unnatural.  The pleasant-ness of it all.  We ignored the prophecy of those prepared, those who stocked their pantries, crying out that the
          end was near.  It all reeked of that sharp, distinct aroma of rotting dreams amidst denial.  We chose instead to look away from what
                          we lacked, to inhabit what wasn’t
                                                 real

and I think, in fact, it rained the day
                                                                                                                     you left,
and I think that
it was evening. 
And I don’t remember what the sky looked
                                                                                    like,
or whether or not it was

warm. 
But I know the planet tilted and that it was my voice that broke the silence and that your absence left a crater in all I ever took for granted and that
the shock came in waves for months and months and that I was blinded.  And when I regained sight, I saw our house in pieces, and had to pull my body from the rubble and instead of we, there was only me, and that just the idea now of us seems far away.

Maybe, it’s melodrama.  But, maybe it’s all I know.  Maybe how I feel is my landscape and the scenery of what you left behind is stark and more
                          real
than the
ground I stood on when you were here.