Rescue

Whenever heavy clouds rolled over the town’s mountain
From the southwest where they seemed to breed
In heat on the rare summer afternoon of TV and Oreos
We grew electric waiting for the first nickel downpour
To pull the sun into the driveway moving in solemn
Preparation to our stations at the deck door front porch
Scouting for sign of ice flecks leaping from the grass
With a rush at the sight of them two primed militants
To the nearest pots at either side of our blue house
Full of soft soil and many blooms learning each other
By their mingling roots and primal soaking faces
To drag them under cover when the rain gave way
To save our mother’s flowers from the hail like she’d
Trained us to assure her when she came home
Muted and gaunt that yes it had hailed up here too
But we made sure her flowers were safe that we
Tucked them under our chests til the house harbored
Their limbs that we’d never let the ice pelt them that
Her flowers had tasted the cool rain but no more
That her flowers were safe and we made sure for her

Ellie Snyder is a poet and copywriter for a nonprofit helping people, pets and the planet in Boise, Idaho. Read her work in New Note Poetry, Fauxmoir, Pinky Thinker Press and forthcoming in The Blood Pudding and Tiny Seed Journal.