Poetry by Alison Hurwitz

Krystian Olszanski CC



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Storm Heckler 

​Commit.
This scrim of overcast is not worth shit:
Quit your hovering, your smirk of muggy
swelter, your lowering suggestion of inclemency.
If sky’s a field, be done with airbrushed furrows.
Squall. Crack open clouds, throw down a bolt, tear
afternoon apart, whip wind to wrack complacency with thunder.
Enough with your insipid susurration; the air is not your library
to shush. Come on- catch me napping, frack this desultory hour
electric in a welter of a deluge. Monsoon me.

Drench
my head in downpour, until my hair’s a rabid cataract, until
my puckered arms stand plucked like naked geese. Serve adrenalin,
body blading lightning till my voice twines up to tantrum sky,
screaming out a maelstrom, tearing branches limb from limb. Too long
I’ve stayed sleep-walking, forgetting what it is to wake a hurricane.
Let me hurl invectives like hail-yes, into storm. Break open
pent-up waiting, seismic shaking this collision, until my grief
can finally tear free; let it tumble into current, rain and rift
and snowmelt surging down the mountain till it slows,
flows liquid salt to sea.





​Alison Hurwitz has been published in Tiferet Journal, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Anti-Heroin Chic, Book of Matches, The Shore, Amethyst Review, Rust and Moth, Thimble Magazine, Speckled Trout Review, River Heron Review, Gyroscope Review, The Jewish Writing Project, SWWIM Every Day, Minyan Magazine, Last Leaves Magazine and RockPaperPoem among others. Her work is forthcoming in Carmina Magazine. Alison lives with her family and rescue dog in North Carolina, officiates weddings and memorial services, and hosts Well-Versed Words, a free monthly online poetry reading. See more at alisonhurwitz.com
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