Waiting for Lightning

Again I am the child hunched into a tense ball
            in bed on Christmas morning, 
            breathless with frogs trampolining 
            my stomach, for the house to wake, 
            the curtained French doors to break 
open on a storybook scene—and the Doll 

sensing the texture of crisp, golden hair 
            on my cheek where my own lank brown 
            slides, want thumping like a snake down 
            my throat; knowing the year has been hard,
            estimating price, perceiving Santa, God, 
and significant prayers, convinced the doll won’t be there 

shining with open arms beneath the miraculous tree;
            yet my child’s hope insists it must be, 
            adding farfetched possibilities 
            this way and the other, summing 
            opposite results in the torture of waiting. 
That longing shook other mornings until I grew to be

adult, which means: you don’t desperately want
            what you’re not able, yourself, to get. 
            Yet, longing, I stand shivering and wet 
            beneath this enormous willow, 
            taking part in a violent summer downpour, 
swallowing cool air like a tranquilizer as flowers flaunt 

and shimmy fertile blooms, earth freshens. Trying
            to trust in the inertia of living cells, I’m again
            a throat-hurting, soul-scheming ten 
            yearning for a silky head beneath my chin. 
            Then let thunder be my voice in this barbarous din
berating the specters of hell! the rains be my prayer, crying 

persistently to heaven, million-tongued, as my own
            sticks on helpless teeth, silently counting 
            signals and signs (for lightning stays wild), adding
            the unlikelihoods this way and that 
            of my willow toppling, leaf-steaming and sizzling flat
pierced by an off-chance, afraid in my heart that it can, it can.