After the Tornado

by Beth Suter
 
startling silence—
             I was handmade
                          from downed limbs

I rocked you in your mother’s lap
            my wicker creaked with her song:
                         swing low sweet chariot—

sitting with you when she couldn’t
             I kept the feeling
                         of her holding you

I contained the storm when she threw me
            back into pieces of pine
                         and willow flying

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Beth Suter studied Environmental Science at U.C. Davis and has worked as a naturalist and teacher. She is also a Pushcart Prize nominee, with recent or forthcoming poems in Poetry South, Mudfish, Poet Lore, and The American Journal of Poetry, among others. She lives in Davis, California with her husband and son.