Taking the path
of least resistance,
lightning avoids
any source of friction
that might impede
its direction or speed.
Skirting the issue of the trunk
it finds a workaround,
cuts corners, cuts out
the middleman,
forges ahead, finds ways
to twist whatever it was you said.
It needles, slices through
soft obstacles. Hot wire
through butter, it keeps
its knife edge sharp
by avoiding anything
that might be difficult
to dissect. It hits
and runs, swerves
to miss the bicyclist,
leaves the car
and everyone inside intact.
On sharpened blades, it skates
through life unscathed,
enters the ground
with the same force
with which it left the cloud
penetrates the surface
through invisible glass tunnels
it fabricates to match the exact
dimensions of its own intents.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 1.
Kelly Houle is a writer and artist whose poetry has been published widely. She was a semifinalist for the Emily Dickinson Award (2003) as well as the Red Rock Poetry Award (2004). She has an MFA in creative writing from Arizona State University, where she also received a Virginia G. Piper Summer Creative Writing Fellowship. Kelly is the founder of Books of Kell’s Press, where she creates limited editions of handmade miniature books and illuminated manuscripts. She has been an academic tutor for the past twenty years. Kelly also worked at the National Weather Service in Phoenix and Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. She enjoys watching the sky.
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