Storm Rethinks Her Position

At my vanity, I brush the stars
from my hair, listen
to the bones of my friends
as they settle into their chambers.
One cough, wet as the clouds
I gather around me like children,
lands muffled on my ears.

Outside, Wolverine’s bike roars to life, shrinks
to a small buzz swallowed in the distance.
(He roams until dawn, pacing
his pocked memory, lying in the hollows
hoping the darkness offers a clue of who he is.)
While the bristles move through, I nervously mull
over Magneto’s proposition, praying
the Professor has closed his mind for the evening,
that Cerebro has sighed herself to sleep.

There is sense in Magneto’s position, this madman
whose body is a nest of the electromagnetic,
who makes a home for us higher than I’ve ever flown –
where Venus slowly rotates like a woman
appraising herself in her mirror.
All my life on this planet spent in service
of others, the elements that converge in my breast
for their protection bow to me like the small humans
in the village of my mother when I was a girl, a waterfall
spray of albino cornrows washing down my shoulders.

I try to remember a moment of humanity, a memory
not contaminated with humanity's hatred
(the kaleidoscope of genocide they spin before our eyes).
I think of the vow I have made, the laughter of my family,
their magic crackling in the air around me,
and wonder what freedom tastes like.