Storm Girl

as soon as she kissed me the storm front wheeled
around (& something in the way her eyeshadow ran
signalled the changing of the big new year tides
the fishermen had warned us of down on the beach
where her pet dog ran wild & her hand in my hair
from here to eternity (the moments of compassion
whipped palms surrendering their seeds to summer
but back to her eyes in the dark (if i was there
the waves climbed up my outstretched legs like a
vine & there she was her kisses advancing & then
changing shape one look was barometric so johnny
took the pressure down & examined satellite maps
a spiralling mass of fluffy white cotton as she
removed my facemask & flippers (not the stun gun
the water massed & heaved her arms surged around
me whispering her own weather predictions in the
conch shell of my ear i grew afraid of her shape-
shifting in the midday dark & the palms were now
parallel to the ground & calls came in over the
walkie-talkies of evacuations power failures etc
she pinned me to the beach between disappearing
flags two rubber dinghies flashing past my cheek
inside her mouth (the cyclone wheeled on its eye
my hair stood on end horizontally crushed i was
plastic in the invisible sun she rolled me on to
my stomach & made like i was a surfboard paddled
me out to sea our bodies one single arc to dip &
fall over the now-unbreaking waves until at last
she closed her storm girl eyes & the freak storm
subsided leaving us floating there with our arms
stretched out holding hands (two starfish in our
own aquarium waiting for the rescue boat to come