Storm and the Woman by John Grey

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Storm and the Woman

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Jessie was frightened of the lightning.

Not the thunder, that was just noise, and she’d been

married to a man who boxed in his spare time.

And the rain was nothing. In fact, she welcomed the rain.

But lightning could hit any place, any time,

and not just some solitary forest tree or an old barn

about to fall anyhow but a living, breathing human being.

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She sat with this new guy on the couch,

hugged him so close like she was trying to get

inside him for protection.

And then the thunder rolled loud and near.

She shuddered. “I didn’t think you

were afraid of thunder,” he said.

But she’d just remembered the times

her ex whacked her face suddenly, violently.

Lightning, thunder…it was near impossible

to separate the two.

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Then the clouds broke and the rain poured. She started

to sob violently. “Always used to cry like this when he hit me,”

she said. “Maybe you’re different,” she added.

He was. And then eventually storms were different.

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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in
That, Dunes Review, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work
upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Thin Air, Dalhousie
Review and failbetter.

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Less is Now by John Grey

Less is Now

The hospital where you were born

was razed twenty years ago,

the land developed as a

shopping mall and condos.

Your parents have also passed on –

but not to provide shopping and living space

             you hope.

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The grammar school was shuttered,

the high school abandoned.

Changing demographics

then started in with its wrecking ball.

And, of course, there’s no point

in looking for the house you grew up in.

Something called Lakeland Estates

was built atop its bones.

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The mom and pop shops

down Main Street

long ago succumbed to

the chain-stores rimming the town.

In fact, there no longer is a town.

It’s a commuter suburb

from its strip malls to its Park and Ride.

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With no more family,

the person you were

exists only as a memory.

And even that is

fading with the years.

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It’s nostalgia for now

and darkness in the days to come.

Your calendar’s almost complete.

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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Midwest Quarterly, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and the Dunes Review.

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