Cynthia Knorr

It was the whistle, of course

from the kettle I forgot on the stove,
a shriek that stunned in its ferocity,
a sound larger than the house.
My mind groped for meaning. 
For a millisecond, no, shorter,
I thought it was a trumpet,
one of the seven that signals
the apocalypse, a dramatic conclusion
to draw, and one that I dispelled
in a fraction of a heartbeat,
but an odd bit of Bible to be stored
in a skeptic’s brain, likely deposited
during some long ago Sunday School
class when a well-meaning volunteer
passed out end-times coloring books
to a table of restless four-year-olds.
Children’s minds are soft gold waiting
to be molded, so many molders out there,
and once set, so resistant to new
and sounder shapes. What else is stored
in my psyche, what passionate rumblings
stuck fast and threaten to emerge
in a moment of crisis, compelling me
to stockpile weapons or join a cult when
I could have just turned off the kettle?

 ***

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Cynthia Knorr is the author of the chapbook A Vessel of Furious Resolve (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Her poems have appeared in Hole in the Head Review, SWWIM Every Day, Café Review, The Healing Muse, The Nature of Our Times Anthology and many others. She lives in rural New Hampshire where she serves on the editorial staff of the poetry journal Touchstone. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee and was longlisted for the 2024 Sappho Prize for Women Poets.