(Two major hurricanes strafed Massachusetts’ coast in 1954, only the

second year that women’s names were officially used to designate hurricanes.)

was my first, right after

my eleventh birthday. I met her

at the beach, a surf tumultuous

enough to toss the diving raft

on shore, reminding me how

I thought I’d drown proving

I could swim way out to it.

But it was Edna, a month later,

who gave me her fierce gift.

She felled the playground

castles where I warred all

summer; salting the reflecting

pond where pollywogs tickled

my toes and rose blossoms

at its edges smelled like my

Ma’s perfume. All that destruction,

an ocean lashing my shore; even

granite seawalls couldn’t protect

1. Since then, hurricanes excite

me as surely as some people

feel guilty after a climax.

DR DAVID B AXELROD was Suffolk County’s and is now Volusia County, Florida, Poet Laureate  appointed for 2015-2023. He’s been published in hundreds of magazines, anthologies; twenty-two books of poetry—the newest, All Vows: New & Selected Poems. Read more about him at his website: www.poetrydoctor.org.