morbid forecasts

Amelia Nason, United States

i’m convinced that all bad weather is just poetry

the storm that knocked down power lines on my street

is actually anaphora & hyperbole & metaphor

masquerading as low barometric pressure

& atmospheric disturbance

there’s usually a drought in california

but you can blame that on a tedious rhyme scheme

or maybe an overindulgence of simile

stuck between one billion teeth like grape seeds

a politician challenges voters at his town hall to decide

which threat is more existential? climate change

or a chronic deficit of human creativity?

then asks his staff what fits better on a campaign poster

everyone is worried about hail the size of golf balls

but never golf balls the size of hail

is antimetabole a public health risk? our politician asks

my arms are covered with words

rather than sunscreen

a mess of sharpie verses scrawled in some parking lot

black pavement devouring the mid-august heat wave

black pigment spitting out what i hope is originality

i’m already running late for a doctor’s appointment

but i’d rather get skin cancer than lose a good stanza

& we’re all probably just ants

under god’s vindictive magnifying glass anyway

only a playground bully could dream up

something as prosaic as the world rending itself apart

our politician wants to know

why do you need a fictional scapegoat?

i’m not sure if he’s talking about himself or god

& neither is he these days

but i write lyrics at the bottom of every shopping list

because even though i’m becoming too familiar

with the sickly sweet smell of my medicine cabinet

& a sky bleeding out above early summer forest fires

i want to fall in love again

so i can write about all ways it annihilates me

& how i always hear poetry in thunder

Amelia Nason is a next generation indie award finalist, a scholastic award winner, & an alumna of the iowa young writers’ studio, interlochen, fir acres, & new york times summer writing programs. her work is featured in the ice lolly review, full mood magazine, hand picked poetry, eunoia review, the lunar journal, diet water mag, healthline, the aurora journal, & the origami review. her debut chapbook, poems i shouldn’t have written, is out now with bottlecap press. when she isn’t writing, amelia fences competitively. you can find her on twitter @amelia_emn.