Close Shave
It was the end of the world
when the lights went out.
The pale green leaves,
bleached of color by late June,
lit by lightning, whipped and spun
and flung their undersides around.
The infrastructure of branches
curved or bowed or bent,
leaned in one obedient direction,
then another.
Elsewhere, the gale was severing trunks.
We saw them after: jagged stumps
close to the ground, like pickets
in between the survivors.
Afterwards, the road was carpeted
with twigs and sticks and trees’ whole arms —
the clippings of the haircut
the derecho gave the neighborhood.
When the lights went out,
and we sat in a room dark
except for the storm’s own strobe,
I looked at my new husband,
and thought about how I was expecting it—
ruin, retribution, the rigor that
all our happiness seems to be lacking.
I said to him, I was pretty sure
the gods would strike us down;
I just didn’t think
they’d take this long
Sian M. Jones received an MFA in fiction from Mills College. Her work has appeared in Stirring: A Literary Collection and Streetlight Magazine, among other publications. In her day job, she writes as clearly as she can about complex code. She occasionally updates jonessian.com.