Eye-Riding

In the hurricane’s eye a being does not want

to break apart—cocooned,

as wind lofts petrel and whimbrel

cutting through layers to the thickening eyewall.

Time rises on extreme equations

of heat, days without food or rest. Already circling

inside the eye, angular wings and forked tails

of frigatebirds, owl trapped with yellow-nosed albatross,

as if sky-roads frothing space inside me—sleepless

above a shattered forest—flew,

cried velvet inside the eye as heard by the ear,

the last face a sound—was it you

flying through the eye of our coming,

driving hard

until the outer spiraling winds

clamored for passage

through my body,

and the birds fell far away.

Heather H. Thomas

12.9.24