The Latest Tornado

But what of the wood duck, displaced, alone in a shadow?    
Its aimless waddle reminds: I have not yet
dragged myself back to who mothered me,    
the widow I ignore.     

She, like me, fears the nothing left—   
the said, the unsaid. I sense
permanence brewing and go on

dozing under dogwood. I collect
snapped branches, the blossoms hardly bruised—
these I receive for my ambling, though I am
unworthy, the runaway
daughter