Alabama, 2002
by Rachel Tanner

there's a storm brewing outside and gramma says
let's sit on the covered porch
so we sit on the covered porch
praying for straight down rain cuz slanty rain
would soak us to the bone.  

it's coming down good and heavy now, but
there are no sirens yet. so we stay
on the porch swing watching the sky darken.
watching the heavens pour themselves out
right in front of us. gramma says she reckons
there must only be three, four seconds between 
the lightning and the thunder. we sit and
count our blessings.
one mississippi.
two mississippi.
gramma says remind me again how to
spell mississippi so i spell it for her and
the tornado siren finally starts wailing.
it’s a familiar noise, right down
to the peppering of thunderclaps. 

gramma doesn't seem worried
so we're not worried either.
the air feels electric, but still we watch.
the rain starts coming down diagonally
but still we watch.

At 23, I Finally Stopped Bleeding
by Rachel Tanner

There was fire in my belly where life ought to be, so
doctors sliced and twisted my insides unrecognizable,

made sure I’d never be able to hold the hand of my love
across the dining room table, point at our child,

say look at this soft we’ve made. This brilliant.
If all’s well that starts well, I was doomed from the beginning.

If all’s well that ends well, I am still learning to 
swim upstream from the throb of 

endless endless endless endless that found me
at age 9, estrogen and progesterone pills

given to me in the elementary school office
every day right after lunch. Every day

different from the other kids. Every day
the pain and the blood. My god, the blood.

Rachel Tanner is a queer, disabled Alabamian author whose writing has recently appeared in The Amethyst Review, The Weekly Degree, Crepe and Penn, and elsewhere. She tweets @rickit.