Tornado

She screams like a banshee,

voicing her wind-whipped sorrow

Howls of pain, rage claw their way

from her throat with cholla thorns

She funnels the ground in desperate agony

against herself, against nature

She wails a death song, a love song;

Life music, blood music

And then she's gone

in a swirl of rainhair and teeth and claws

Disappeared as soon and silently

as she came.