Thunder rattles teacups in the dish strainer.
Wind sings under the garage door,
low and mournful like a ghost displaced from a Scottish castle.
The darkness that hangs heavy on the sky,
the yogic bend of the oak branches 
are friends here for an infrequent visit. 
Ozone scent of the gathering storm,
wet and earthy, trips circuits of memory centers
as it whistles in through the open window. 
My dog looks up at me, doe-eyes questioning if he should be on guard. 
I shake my head and let the afternoon wrap around me 
like a thick wool sweater,
a comfort from beyond the grave.

My childhood was spent underfoot,
my tongue with too many words for the listener’s ears. 
The needs of others kept my mother juggling plates
and bowling balls, 
brothers rushed in and out, kicking up dust dervishes in their wake. 
My father’s arms were stiff and distant,
his attentions never cleaved from the corporate world that inhabited him. 
As he held court, facts and figures hovered precariously aloft, 
all beyond my ken.
His attempts to forge a bond fell flat-footed and empty at my feet, 
thin crumpled wrapping from a gift meant for someone else.

I was apart,

a speck of dust slowly falling to the floor
in a shaft of light cast by various sons.
My world revolved around the unmet need at my center,
a celestial body so large I couldn’t see the edges,
so needy it became the mouth that swallowed its own skull.

“You can’t get blood from a rock,” my mother had said.
“If all he has are apples, 
you can’t get an orange no matter how badly you may want one.”
The logic of her words was a song
sung out of tune to the wrong audience. 

But one night as a beast raged outside my window
and ripples of terror quavered through my small limbs 
my father lifted me up to stand on the window sill
with an unfamiliar gentleness. 
Together we watched as the monster boomed and stalked.
Pointing to the neon bolt that splintered the sky,
he called out the tinge of purple 
dancing behind the gash of brilliant lacy gold 
that fear had hidden from my eyes. 

One two three four BOOM.

As we counted, the beast
morphed into oddity then into 
a masterpiece painted by god for
the enlightened mortal to marvel at.

Words fell away. 
All that remained were
two foreigners who had found a wordless common language. 
A bridge across the great expanse
that my brothers did not trod upon.
This was mine alone. 
I was the sole companion on the rainy camping hikes
and observing the dripping, angry skies from Myrtle Beach balconies. 

The years passed and mother nature’s fury
became a foundation,
a dictionary of sorts that offered translation,
almost as fluent as a native tongue.
And on the spindle of time the memories spin and twist,
thread for a tapestry I hadn’t envisioned.
Its layered intricacy
rich in unexpected corners.

One rumble, one flash across the sky
and I am back on that bridge,
safe amidst the gale.