top of page
Clay pottery with table linens_edited.jpg

Storm Country

—Edie Meade

Storm Country

Morning lingers after with the fullness of a kiss. Wish for the still

to hold               hand-painted, finger dogears

into a seaside postcard. But weather substitutes for feelings

in this country & Mark is off to work. What’s the matter

with the sky? It’s war, it’s a fire—it’s someone else’s fire.

Cargo planes scare up the great fishing birds.


In the woods across the river

we found a cannon the size of a furnace. The Dictator,

a 13-inch seacoast mortar; near on ten months

it blasted remnants of the Confederacy holding hostage

our town. Sixty-thousand corpses. How long to bury

the memory, grievances gathering pestilent, blowfly bold.


The next storm makes a silk of the air. Can they feel it?

But from the alley, neighbors who don’t know us

invite Mark to poker night.

               Go, I say, not meaning it.          Go.

                                                                                     …Will it rain?

We know the answer. Heat billows over like a shroud.

About

EDIE MEADE is a writer, artist, and musician in Petersburg, Virginia. Recent work can be found in Invisible City, New Flash Fiction Review, Atlas & Alice, The Normal School, Pidgeonholes, Litro, Heavy Feather Review and elsewhere. Say hello on Twitter @ediemeade or https://ediemeade.com/.

bottom of page