AUTISM: A POEM

. . . . . II. Sounds of Warning

He doesn’t understand how the terms he’s heard
. . . . . have any meaning beyond mere music filling his ears,

even as he listened to this rising lilt of his mother’s
. . . . . voice, though she spoke softly at first, hoping to offer

a warning of harm yet without risking his physical
. . . . . reactions to stress when alarmed. But now her words

lift above a high whine of the town’s tornado siren
. . . . . and a couple of quick thuds, distant thunder arriving

from somewhere along the horizon. There, bright
. . . . . cracks of lightning still splinter that blue-black sky,

backlighting the web of a neighbor’s diseased elm,
. . . . . as if its twist of wilted limbs had suddenly come alive.