The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Spoil by Alyse Bensel

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Hurricane Season

Disaster has been brewing all spring,
its genesis slick as an overripe plum

that falls in a heap of skin and pulp.
Clouds gather like starlings. A widening mouth

borrows the ocean. Fast talker, yarn spinner,
spool thick with clouds. I’m safe in the middle

of the continent—no shoreline to trace,
no widow’s walk to pace. I open windows

to welcome a wind that when caged
can collapse walls, level an island.

The news reports a surging tide,
a narrow miss. While the ocean ticks

up degrees, I read the weather
as a series of chances:

roll the dice, be ready to lose.
Houses are a game of pick-up sticks,

playthings built to collapse.
When there is no more tree line,

everything kneels. Tragedies
on the seismic scale don’t even

register on the news. No one blames
this violence on themselves

but after, parents won’t give
their children those names

for years, won’t put destruction
in such a small body.

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