Chloe Cook holds a BA in English from Northern Kentucky University, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of Loch Norse Magazine and received the 2022 Lindsey Leadership Award. Her writing is featured or forthcoming in Stoneboat Literary Journal, The Journal, deathcap, Ghost City Review, Pegasus, and elsewhere. She will begin an MFA in poetry at the University of Florida this fall.
Natural Disaster
I hide in crawdad shells. Needles grin
and nails puncture the pier. Which way
does the moss grow again? Towards the sun-bloom
young egrets preen. Soot falls in, cloaks over
my hair. Yesterday was the first morning
I felt without touch. Today, wind is a symptom.
I hope the monsoon hears the butterfly-strokes
in my stomach. Suddenly, yolks of hurricanes hurdle
towards mainland. Everything howls with the hot summer.