Weather Girl by Duncan Smith

Sitting here on my trailer’s stoop
waiting for the next tornado.

My Army Ranger rotates round the bed
stuffing his knapsack with everything he owns.
He’s off to his next deployment.
10% chance it’s another country;
90% chance another woman.

Tonight’s forecast calls
for another shift at the Mini-Mart.
Where my customers are mean,
the wage minimum,
the probabilities not
the ones you want.



Duncan Smith is a librarian-entrepreneur who lives and writes in Durham, NC. His essays, poetry and prose have appeared in Booklist, Broad River Review and The Crucible. A North Carolina native, he is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.