In need of air, she unhinged every
window, revolving ones downstairs,
upstairs skylights, mid-floor French doors,
swept into the house the salt-brine,
the cricket chirp, the osprey whistle,
the sea-current, sound of the Sound,
but had not noticed the basement
bedroom window shielded by blinds,
screen-less. Later that night when they
returned home, lights illuminating
the downstairs hall, insects inhabited
the ground floor rooms. She carried handfuls
of creatures across a River Styx-
the katydids perched on lampshades,
beach tiger beetles shuttling across
floorboards, nursery web spiders splotching
the ceiling-trying to put back
the wild fury she had released.


About This Poem
"When I first drafted 'After the Squall,' I had, in the back of my mind, the myth of Pandora's jar, a container filled with bottled-up emotions. This modern-day Pandora, on a sultry summer night, unleashes the Furies by accident (or maybe not). Only after it was finished did I realize that the poem is an ars poetica."
-Elise Paschen

About Elise Paschen
Elise Paschen is the author of "The Nightlife" (Red Hen Press, 2017). She teaches in the M.F.A writing program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and lives in Chicago.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 Elise Paschen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate