Whirlwind

Last summer, you broke a man's heart,
and you broke the man too.

The skies turned a sickly green,
and the clouds spiraled around
your head. The wind howled out in
anguish, like an infant that knows only
that to scream is to survive.
You hid yourself away, tucked inside the
bathtub, with your old twin-sized mattress
on top. And you stayed there like that until the
wee hours of morning, long after the storm
had cried itself to sleep. Long after
the last residual teardrops fell.

There's a saying that floats around here:
“If you wait a minute, the weather will change.”

By necessity, when you dream of love,
you remember the tornado. And yet,
here you are now, daring
to melt into the candlelight and
bubbles. Rising from the bath,
coquettishly, as if pinpricks of cold air
are more akin to anticipatory goosebumps
than to shards of glass.
And smiling at your reflection in the
mirror, even when, in the steam, it offers
only a blurry suggestion of yourself.