Spittoon 2.4 Wiseman, Tornado Song
Tornado Song Laura Madeline Wiseman
There is a tornado. There’s always a tornado. Against the balcony you lean, camera in hand, below a sky the shade of jade, clouds like upside down volcanoes. Amazing to get this on tape, you say to short man beside you, drinking whisky at noon. You know nothing of tornados, of scrotums. Nothing of male competition in windstorms. Nothing of black shoe polish and hardwood floors. You only know this: there’s a tornado and it’s coming for you. Studded man is half-nude. Your camera is flashing. The clouds roil. Ten years ago, a tornado legato killed studded man’s sister. Short man’s sister, too, was broken by storm. Her body a cyclone, limbs flailing. She’s chair-bound now. Studded man slurs, She’s a land witch. Short man echoes, She’s a twister girl. You ignore them. Their tales of one-upmanship, their vying for ownership of sisters’ bodies, of yours. You record that wide jade thing outside of the porch. The tornado kicks up dust and trees. Houses whip up into the sky. Here is the window as tall as a door you can’t walk though. Outside the short man berates his kid sister. A tornado, he says, sucking up all I build, all I do. You’re inside with studded man, breath rapid, tumultuous like confused birds unable to land. Studded man captures you by camera leaning into storm-light. You’re wicked, studded man says. You say, I need to shower, exiting the bedroom. See, you want to be brief, as hasty as an accident mid-May, as short-lived as a house along Tornado Alley, as chaotic as three tornadoes in a prairie city. You want swiftness. You want someone accelerando temporarily. Is it short man? Studded man? Big man? Whose he? Here’s the options. One, claim the dance floor as hard and as a promise. Two, chase the tails of tornados as they rip through, out-of-season in multiples: three, seven, five, nine. (Should you play the odds?) Three, dominate the bed, your body as rich as black soil. Decisions. When given the choice, choose both, a teacher once said in earth science in a unit of storms, tempests, gales. So you do the unthinkable, following the craggy barrel, choosing one, two, and three. 2