Summer Storm

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Tonight, a summer storm brightens the sky,
;…….…striking with its quickly lit filaments of lightning

and moving through like that late freight train
….……traveling toward an early morning rendezvous

at a transfer station somewhere north of here,
…….…barely beyond the state line. My son wakens, shaken

by the sudden thunder, the longer jutting limbs
…….…of an old oak weighted with wet leaves scraping

against the vinyl siding running just underneath
…….…the eaves. Already, a frustrated search for speech,

each word lost like the black surface of that little
…….…lake now hidden behind his shut window shades.