The Storm

by Johanna Magin

Think of an abandoned guesthouse,

with its clan of red squirrels clamoring

up the frame, the half-browning ivy

skirting inside and out. Think of its lost yard,

rewilded despite itself, like your love’s

open mouth, a mix of totem

and terror. Hear his shout

as he throws the phone across

an empty room, until it is belted

and bled through.

Remember it is the year of the blue horse,

it is the year of the Fire Horse:

they say auspiciousness has come

our way. Think of why the house

must stand for something now.

See how he must thunder and rain.

Think again of the phone burst open,

its stupid blue insides exposed, the forever

green screen. Think of how he can’t call you now,

how this signals a travelling back

to the future. Wait until the word

has left his mouth, to tell you everything

that happened in that child-old house,

and watch him kneel before the blue horse,

the only reliable witness

to the storm.

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A two-time finalist for the National Poetry Series (US), Johanna Magin, PhD, is a Paris-based researcher and writer whose poems appear widely in North America and the UK, most notably in: Prairie Schooner, Magma, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, Narrative Magazine, Poet Lore, RHINO, The Georgia Review, The Bennington Review, Wildness, Poetry Wales, and Nimrod. Among her honors: winner of the 2024 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize (US), winner of the 2024 Francine Ringold Awards in Poetry (US), finalist for the 2024 Montreal International Poetry Prize (Canada), finalist for Narrative Magazine’s 17th Annual Poetry Contest (US), shortlisted for the 2025 Fish Publishing Prize (Ireland), and longlisted for the 2024 National Poetry Competition (UK).  More of her work can be found at  https://johannamagin.com/.