Sheet Lightening

I was a child
Without an intelligent thought
Beneath my buzz-cut.
I sat on my grandmother’s
Porch
Eyes toward southern skies
Watching
Heat lightening
Assault the cotton fields
Like panzer tanks.

There were no shafts of dazzle
No bayonets of sparkling
Electricity
But entire thunderheads
Bursting with light
Like luminaries
Along driveways
Where rich folks lived.

Sheet lightening

Mother said
And it put a notion
In my head
Of freshly-washed
Bed sheets
Left on a midnight clothesline
Fluttering In front of
Blazing florescent lights.

The towering storms

Were so distant
Thunder was impossible to hear.
I thought of July Fourth fireworks
But soundless
In their amazement.

The storms tracked south

With more and greater

Towers
Following the old
Cotton Belt rail lines
Beyond Paragould.

At breakfast

The next morning
The radio said three were
Dead
After tornadoes touched down
In Greene County.
Dozens were left homeless.

But all I wondered was

Whether the dead
Heard any thunder
Before their
Walls blew away.