After Ada Limón

Rain is the truest bright dead thing
I’ve ever been afraid of. Rain as it beats
against a window, tiny little bodies,
each drop a chance to catch something before
it splatters. I live most of my life
trying to avoid disaster. One day,
in our car on the way to church
My husband asks me what I’m thinking about,
I can’t be honest and answer with
Do you think I can avoid drowning
by never going in water again?
So I lie and say God.
Outside our window, starlings soar
in front of a backdrop of gathering storm
clouds. Gather, as in, meeting, an assembly
with a common purpose. They look like
dead things too. How quickly that
storm becomes a hurricane full of suicidal
drops. I feel the flap of their wings crawl
up my neck as I try to remind myself
we are so far from any ocean, any drowning.
I prepare myself for the bodies of those birds
to turn suddenly, aiming themselves for my
head, droplets of storm steaming off
as they dive. I am convincing myself
I have the answers to staying alive through
any threat. I have a bible in my hand,
but I think of Limón’s poetry instead,
Fine then, I’ll take it…I’ll take it all.

Taylor Franson-Thiel is a Pushcart nominated poet from Utah, now based in Fairfax, Virginia. She received her Master’s in creative writing from Utah State University and is pursuing an MFA at George Mason University. She enjoys lifting heavy weights and posting reviews to Goodreads like someone is actually reading them.