Alan Britt’s most recent poem to appear here was Last Call (October 2012).

Survivors
(for the residents of Joplin MO and Denning AR)
By Alan Britt

It started, Margaret said, as a low growl oozing
from a bloodhound’s gloomy nose, weaving
soybean, cotton & cornfields, elbowing 
churches, schools & shopping centers
from their foundations before the walls
of her clapboard house began to tremble;
then shingles flew, dishes rattled, windows exploded,
& a darkness with crocodile teeth the color
of military fatigues ripped the roof off
flinging it sideways before swallowing
the dining room table, Whirlpools
& bunk beds with a schizophrenic fury 
known only to a godless universe.

In a matter of minutes, seconds, perhaps,
silence shrouded cattle barns & turkey farms.

After the golden glitter drifted across soybean,
cotton & cornfields, across schools, churches
& shopping centers, across two-lane highways
with cracked ribs & a rural library’s romance novels
with paper guts strewn across the parking lot,
after this gold dust explosion subsided, survivors
emerged beneath sheetrock, brick & clapboards,
bleeding & weary-eyed but believing that for the grace
of god it wasn’t them & began sorting
the pieces of their lives into two piles:
one destined for the landfill, the other
prepared for rebuilding.