Mary Describes How it Feels

By Kathryn Smith

When the angel spoke, the axis pulled
through earth’s center like a needle through
cloth. Mountains split and plunged
to the depths of the sea, whose tides had turned backward,
whose moon no longer held sway. At the sound
of the angel’s voice, the tree outside my window
gave back its sunlight. It began to shrink its branches,
leaves furling in on themselves, bark returning
to a cellular memory, down to the code
of a single seed. The whole world was a walnut,
and it latched within me. When I sleep,
I dream of armies marching straight
into oceans, of one hundred lambs
penned for slaughter and the axman
throwing open the gate. I dream of plagues
undone. But mostly
I don’t sleep, spun by the hurricane
churning inside me, buildings rising
and tumbling until one
stone remains. Rumor of war
in the womb’s dark snare, kernel of coiled history
ready to spring, to hurl every last molecule
from its place—my
untamed, my temblor, my sweet
internal fire unleashing and no one,
no one prepared for its terrible,
beautiful havoc.