Poetry By Michelle Menting

        Doug Kerr CC




​Squall 
​              or, "You're always so quiet."


normally I'd not swirl I'd not whirl about      what seems

at the seams a half acre there      a crowd fest where      quiet 

should be   hush-hush could be      but the rush      that spasm so swish 

cataclysm    of rain      of sleet    of hell more snow     & hail hard blows 

in the thick of it        like a bomb's tick-tick of it          at the cusp of storm 

breaking       last gust of two lovers aching        holding together 

silicone-seal-tight       fear of leaving greater than cold blight      that silence 

that comes humid still     but devours but devours but devours      so why 

wouldn't I                why wouldn't I                now tell me: why wouldn't I 

throw all caution to that brawl of wind and scream & scream & scream?




Michelle Menting's recent poems and flash prose narratives appear or are forthcoming in Cincinnati Review, Passages North, Eco-Theo Review, The Dodge, About Place, and others. She lives in a small house along a little river in a patch of woods in Maine.