The Storm
       

Juddering, heaving blasts
through window frames and doors,
puffing chimney smoke
back into the room,
streaming rain on glass,
trying to heave the house
up into the air
past morning and all afternoon
flying like a bird
until the ten-foot garden wall
crumbled and fell flat
beyond the flowerbeds—
greyish clump-fired bricks
and lengths of coping stone
fallen with a thump
and look, too, miles beyond
house and garden all
the unknown neighborhood
formed in a single view:
flagstone paths still wet,
sheds cocked by the wind
fencing pushed askew
garden gates unhinged;
till the four o'clock goods train
came out of the earth faroff,
hooting as usual, puffing loud,
trundle of goods wagons
barely imaginable, now seen,
heard quite as usual;
dusk seen too, dusk as usual, still,
as I crept, havering, over the bricks,
over cabbages, dead stalks and flowers
as far as the culvert, empty now,
as lights in every house flicked on,
showing families gathering for tea,
I gazed at them unseen, unsure
of where we fitted in.

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Copyright © 2015 Mairi MacInnes All rights reserved
from The Hudson Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission