Eye of the Storm

It is a day that glimmers like the inside 
of a fairy tale, one whose sky 
is the color of a dented cauldron that won't 
stop boiling and boiling so every 
street in every town floods with oatmeal 
or molasses dark as mud. You promised 
to remember.  It has been a day, no, several 
days now. The animals have fled through 
the torn brambles. People watch as houses 
topple: their chicken legs bow in the swell 
of water, and windows fold like postcards 
on a revolving rack. A voice the size of an acorn 
comes out of the dark. What will you surrender—
your comb, your pillow, your blue thread and needle?