Jeremy Gardner in After Midnight (2019)
You torrid maskless wonder.
You blew in from the south and battered down every door, wall, window, hutch and sill; you stripped storm drains from the bones of this shotgun bungalow home.
Your wailing and moaning frightens and excites me. The lawn is strewn with battered branches.
Your voice is silent but your memory haunts these walls. They told me never to build on sand, and now my foundation is gone.
You took your 90 mile winds and constant foreboding to water rain-parched deserts; of course they need you more than me. These cypress roots can only drink so much.
Your eye conjures rain like a waterlogged cherubim.
You, the constant flux. You, the orchard Moses. You, the Alabama Jesus.
I knew I would reap your whirlwind.
You said you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, but you never stuck around long enough to see it finished.
You are the soft-handed savior,
the timorous fisher of men. You are the eternal promise,
the never-coming messiah.
I wonder if the wind will blow you back to me.
