The Lightning Rod Effect

We cannot watch the weather report

without arguing over

the likelihood of lightning

striking in the same place twice

You will tell me that once a girl

is thunderstruck

there is some invisible

seal impressed upon her skull,

making her a walking target

for future storms,

like the clouds can tell

by the way she

moves and speaks and dresses

that she’s an easy target

I will ask you what about

all of the girls who never report

having been hit,

all the girls who keep their

victimization locked up

in the backs of their minds,

all the girls who stop

going out when it rains,

all the girls who curl up

with the lights on

too afraid of lightning to ever

leave their beds again,

all the girls who are struck

once and only once

because that’s all it takes

We cannot go outside

without wondering if tonight

might be the night the sky

decides to swallow us up

and spit us out

so that by morning
we won't be the same