By Christiana Doucette

Outside, the yard is gap-toothed. It’s like there’s been
a war: Oaks choke the yard with limbs askew.
Every view more branches, trunks thrown open wide
contents tossed helter-skelter. This woodland shelter
opened to the storm, and the storm swung a baseball bat
like our street was a smash room instead of a diamond.
We are home safe. But nothing will ever be the same again.

From the kitchen window as dishwater
dampens my shirt the break in the trees
leaves me breathless. What of our nightly guest,
the owl, the waterfowl that fish Brushy Creek,
the hawk who stalks our back for squirrels?

Human neighbors are safe but what of the furred and feathered
and the trees whose blessed shade made summer evenings easy?
They’re splayed wide. All they hide exposed.

My daughters stuff their pockets with acorns and unpack
the tiny catapult built summers ago when we explored
the science of falling objects. We paired it with an egg drop,
parachuting Humpty-Dumpty’s unfortunate cousins
from the back deck with packing peanuts, Lucky Charms,
and balloons. Only one survived to be eaten over-easy.
Now the catapult launches acorns into the bare yard.
I wipe my wet hands and watch things falling into place.

The science of falling things smashed our street.
Now it plants acorns in the Carolina clay
where the red mud welcomes every missile,
wrapping each future oak in the ground it needs to grow.

Christiana Doucette is the 2024 Kay Yoder Scholarship for American History recipient. She judged poetry for San Diego Writer’s Festival 2022-2024. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies, been set to music and performed on NPR. Recent/forthcoming poetry can be found in Rattle, County Lines, Little Thoughts Press, Boats Against the Current, Call Me[Brackets], and Wild Peach.