Sonnet While Waiting for the Hurricane

Another woman would have left by now.

Locked, loaded, shot up the artery north

via U.S. 1, back to the safe prow

of the mainland mothership. But of course

I am here on this island, daytime skies

dark with dread. I should be afraid. Instead,

I’m electrified— grown ten times the size

I was yesterday, as though I am fed 

by the coming gale. Let me flirt with you,

Ferryman. Row me to the edge of deep.

Let the sea take me until I must choose

between breath and death. We aren’t meant to sleep

through a tread-water life. I’ll take the waves,

pay the price, bear the pain of being brave. 

Published in Broad River Review, Vol. 54, 2022