Miracle of Fishes, Texarkana

It was a short weather event 

at the border town—something out of Genesis one local

was quoted spewing on the public radio station. 

It’s a meteorological marvel: tornadic waterspouts 

sucking up small creatures—fish, frogs, carried in the belly 

of the stormcloud for god knows how many miles. 

It must be a sight to see, wet flopping flesh

emptied from the sky. It must look like a miracle: animal rain. 

It must be a shock, after the storm, so many bodies

cast across lawns, football fields, the airport tarmac.

It must stink. Must be a pain in the ass to clean it all. 

Shovels and trash bags. Noses turned up to the wet rot. 

It never occurred to me that anything already dead could fall

from the sky, so occupied as I’ve been with burial.

---

HANNAH SMITH is a writer from Dallas, Texas. She was a 2023 National Poetry Series Finalist, and her poems have been published in Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. Her collaborative chapbook, Metal House of Cards, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

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