Hobart

"Every other summer our house would get hit by a tornado" by Joshua Bohnsack

Every other summer our house would get hit by a tornado
That would dip into the valley of my parents’ backyard.
The first time my sister was paranoid because she lived through one
But I shrugged it off until the closed windows swoll and the plate flew out of the closed
     microwave.
& it opened us up to what can go wrong in our world as the dog was sucked up from the deck
     and I watched it through my basement window and told my little brothers, Don’t look out
     there.
Their swing set was wrapped back to a tree and the trampoline floated down the
Mississippi
& it might still be there
I don’t know.

& they kept hitting.

& I went to Ireland
& didn’t hear from my family
But saw the pictures.
My mom wrote me
She had a bad feeling
& moved my records from her den the day before
The basketball hoop would have splintered the vinyl
Where it landed through the window
& I would have never came back.
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Joshua Bohnsack is an MFA student at Northwestern University, a reader for TriQuarterly, and the managing editor for Curbside Splendor Publishing. He is the author of Shift Drink (Spork Press, forthcoming 2018) and Burnt Sienna (Throwback Books 2017). His work has appeared in The Rumpus, Hobart, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and others. He ran an ice cream shop in rural Illinois until he moved to Chicago. @joshuabohnsack