No
hiding from it. That Sunday night
I had to
ride the forty miles, reckoning
I’d
outrun the storm grumbling up behind.
Ambushed
at half way, I pedalled on
along
the streaming road, trying to ignore
lightning
cracking the dark above my head.
Not like
when, aged six, I dashed indoors
at the
first strike, scrambled under a table
and
cowered under dad’s copy of The Times;
nor,
teenaged, hiding under the sheets,
face
pressed into the pillow, drenched
in a
sweat I’ve not experienced since.
Today
I’m a hermit crab in a metal shell
beside
the Everglades’ sawgrass, watching
an inky
bruise suffuse the sky. A kris
slashes
potassium-light once, twice, thrice,
before
pelting rain degenerates a van Gogh
landscape
of tan and indigo to dun and grey.
On a
high, I restart the car and travel on.
Mantz Yorke lives in Manchester,
England. He trained as a metallurgist before becoming a science teacher
and researcher. His poems have appeared in a number of print magazines,
anthologies and e-magazines in the UK, Ireland, the US and Hong Kong.
