Unlike the times we evacuated,
the SUV filled to the brim with
clothes and cats and keepsakes,
we can be minimalists—what we’re
wearing, phones, an extra battery pack.

We’ll follow the dark bubbles of
clouds, searching for the wall, a green
tinge to the edges. Strange to be
pushing towards the event we’ve
always run or hidden ourselves from.

When the rain starts, we’ll wait for 
the wind to pick up, start carrying more 
than leaves and pebble-sized hail. With 
wipers and speakers blasting, you’ll step 
on the gas, and I’ll smash my phone 

against the window for a better image,
branches and McDonald’s wrappers
and waves of water, our windshield
becoming shoreline, beaten and swept,
as we attempt our core punch, to find

the center where everything feels safe,
caged off from the rest of the world.
Inside, we’ll be awash in lightning,
our skin glowing blue from constant
strikes, and it’ll be hard to breathe,

to catch the slightest bit of air
for you or for me. It will all be
a circle, stretched out and spinning
into itself as it widens and widens
and swallows everything but us and

the stillness, my god, the stillness.