Throwing Light

2023
Kathryn Savage

The spring I left the tornado came tearing, 
dumping trees across roads.

The Corolla was unharmed, the car I’d keep. 
In Whittier our neighbor’s daughter 

doing one-handed cartwheels in her front yard. 
Hot for May. I sat in the car after work every night, 

ran the air conditioner. A cyclist veered around the
branches of downed trees balancing a six pack 

on his handlebars. The neighbor’s daughter 
vaulted her body. My routine was to wait 

until after bedtime to change into cut-offs 
and quietly load moving boxes, drive to the new place. 

A friend of mine spent the storm differently: 
kissing sneaky on a front porch. She said, 

Hurry up already. In the night, driving, all around me
long strips of sapwood were throwing light