Last night after a fight with my lover
I sat on my front porch under an umbrella,
vicious thunderstorm pounding
down around me, tugging
the umbrella slantways
and shaking, as I smoked my cigarette
angrily, watching the park across the
street light up with electric daylight.
It felt like Mother Nature laughing, as the
storm grew more furious and insistent,
clucking her thunder-tongue in a mighty show,
sending her rain slivering sideways
beneath my umbrella like finger pokes:
Girl, you know nothing of storms,
go put your petty squall to bed.
Surrendering my anger to the gale,
returning inside to lover quiet,
stretched out on the bed, I strip
off my clothes sodden with Her teaching,
lay down, offering my tongued apologies,
lover rubbing raindrops into my skin
like holy oils, and outside, the rain slowed,
and the moon broke through.
© 2020 R. B. Simon
First published in Winter 2021 Issue of Bramble Literary Magazine.
R.B. Simon (she/her) is a queer, black, fat, disabled poet and Managing Editor at Harbor Editions. R.B.’s work has found homes in pacificREVIEW, The Coop, Strange Horizons, Literary Mama, CALYX, Obsidian, Emerge Literary Journal, and West Trestle Review. Her work has been a finalist for numerous prizes (Julia Darling Memorial Prize, Crosswinds Poetry Prize, Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize, and Unleash Book Award to name a few) and was the winner of the 2023 Zoyer Zyndel Poetry Prize. Her full-length collection, Not Just the Fire, was released March 2023 from Cornerstone Press. Her next collection, Bird Bone Blood is forthcoming in early 2025 (Milk & Cake Press). She is currently living in Madison, WI with her spouse and young daughter.
