How can I not
root for that bird?
They say the storm
will be the biggest
the world has ever seen.
And when she moves across
the sky
she’ll still only get 70% (percent)
news coverage
compared to her male storm
counterpart.
How is Mexico to fair?
Against the world’s (first?)
feminist fury. Against
“I dont fit your patriarchal
Saffir-Simpson rating system.”
She isnt on her
period, see?
She isn’t saving up sick days
for maternity leave.
Her name is Patricia,
and she started as twisting,
heated moisture.
Why do her winds
have to be wild and violent?
She spreads out across the sea,
with wisping clouds resembling
grey hair.
Why can’t her stirrings of the ocean
be art?
We see the rythmic emptiness
of dark water slap
an evacuated beach.
A scene of anxious apocalypse
where the berm provides
the perfect place,
for you and me to watch the way
the waves wade from the horizon
to our parked car in the sand.
If she could speak
Patricia might ask,
“Why am I angry?”
I’d reply,
“Because they think you’re a lady, a woman,
and hell hath no fury
like a woman’s scorn.”
“But I am no lady, I am a storm,”
she’d say.
Patricia left
to hit the coast.
Grey hair-like billows
flowing behind herself like a cape.
And this bird I’ve been watching,
working against her artful gusts, and struggling
to get anywhere but the one spot it’s stuck in.
How could I not
root for that bird?
Human Beans 