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I Keep Going Back To That Weekend

west wind blowing before the cloud wall,

dust streaming off the ridge

like smoke from a cold fire,

you ran out to the sky, arms up,

and me with my legs,

stumping along like a useless gob,

something reached down,

it wasn't the twister, that came later,

something leaned down from the high empty spaces,

a ghostly phosphorescent arm

I could only see with my bad eye,

it touched you and you were gone, it took you

to its bright cold home,

only then did the twister crest the hill,

roaring as it took juniper, smoke tree, prickly pear,

it leapt the valley and I fell in the dirt,

I lay there till dawn, but you never –

so I keep going back to that weekend,

but each time I do I forget,

I forget until it's over what I have to do,

and you are taken again and again.