"Tornadoes"  is a poem about how Moss envies a tornado and why she does. It is using personification to compare tornadoes to a person Moss wants to be. I chose this poem because it is a good example of an Extended Metaphor.

 Tornadoes 
By Thylias Moss
Truth is, I envy them
not because they dance; I out jitterbug them
as I'm shuttled through and through legs
strong as looms, weaving time. They
do black more justice than I, frenzy
of conductor of philharmonic and electricity, hair
on end, result of the charge when horns and strings release
the pent up Beethoven and Mozart. Ions played

instead of notes. The movement
is not wrath, not hormone swarm because
I saw my first forming above the church a surrogate
steeple. The morning of my first baptism and
salvation already tangible, funnel for the spirit
coming into me without losing a drop, my black
guardian angel come to rescue me before all the words

get out, I looked over Jordan and what did I see coming for
to carry me home. Regardez, it all comes back, even the first
grade French, when the tornado stirs up the past, bewitched spoon
lost in its own spin, like a roulette wheel that won't
be steered like the world. They drove me underground,
tornado watches and warnings, atomic bomb drills. Adult
storms so I had to leave the room. Truth is

the tornado is a perfect nappy curl, tightly wound,
spinning wildly when I try to tamper with its nature, shunning
the hot comb and pressing oil even though if absolutely straight
I'd have the longest hair in the world. Bouffant tornadic
crown taking the royal path on a trip to town, stroll down
Tornado Alley where it intersects Memory Lane. Smoky spirit-
clouds, shadows searching for what cast them.

"Raising a Humid Flag "is a poem about women. They are ageing now. It is telling about what they do and how they think. I chose this poem because I thought that it was a good example of a narative.

Raising The Humid Flag
By: Thylias Moss

Enough women over thirty are at Redbones for
the smell of Dixie Peach to translate the air.
I drink when I'm there because you must have
some transparency in this life and you can't see
through the glass till it's empty. Of course I get
next to men with broad feet and bull nostrils to
ward off isolation. You go to Redbones after
you've been everywhere else and can see the rainbow
as fraud, a colorful frown.
The best part is after midnight when the crowd
at its thickest raises a humid flag and hotcombed
hair reverts to nappy origins. I go to Redbones to
put an end to denial. Dixie Peach is a heavy pomade
like canned-ham gelatin. As it drips down foreheads
and necks, it's like tallow dripping down candles
in sacred places.

One For All Newborns
By: Thylias Moss

They kick and flail like crabs on their backs.
Parents outside the nursery window do not believe
they might raise assassins or thieves, at the very worst.
a poet or obscure jazz Musician whose politics spill loudly from his horn.
Everything about it was wonderful, the method
of conception, the gestation, the womb opening
in perfect analogy to the mind's expansion.
Then the dark succession of constricting years,
mother competing with daughter for beauty and losing,
varicose veins and hot-water bottles, joy boiled away,
the arrival of knowledge that eyes are birds with clipped wings,
the sun at a 30° angle and unable to go higher, parents
who cannot push anymore, who stay by the window
looking for signs of spring
and the less familiar gait of grown progeny.
I am now at the age where I must begin to pay
for the way I treated my mother. My daughter is just like me.
The long trip home is further delayed, my presence
keeps the plane on the ground. If I get off, it will fly. The propeller is a cross spinning like a buzz saw about to cut through me. I am haunted and my mother is not dead.
The miracle was not birth but that I lived despite my crimes. I treated God badly also; he is another parent,
watching his kids through a window, eager to be proud
of his creation, looking for signs of spring.

. It tells about the relationship that mother and daughter have. Also how that relationship ch ears. As

they both get One For All Newborns: A mothers legacy
                                         Analysis by : Kathryn Holtto see her mothers point oore clearly. She

  Then the dark succession of constricting years, /mother competing with daughter for beauty and losing, /varicose veins and hot-water bottles, joy boiled away, /the arrival of knowledge that eyes are birds with clipped wings, /the sun at a 30° angle and unable to go higher, parents/ who cannot push anymore, who stay by the window/looking for signs of spring.”  In the quote above Moss gives us an idea of what she is going through, as she is getting older. Not doing as much, ageing both mentally and physically. As she is getting older her daughter is also growing. She is growing into a woman. The woman that her daughter has become is more than the mother. Moss is saying that she is ageing and as she ages her child grows. Also she talks about death, and how she has treated God when she says “I treated God badly also; he is another parent…” She is getting older and is beginning to see that her time is running low. Her daughter is only a reminder of that. In one line Moss says,  “My daughter is just like me.” Her daughter is growing up too. She treats Moss in the same manner that Moss treated her own mother. Her mother is now older, and her time is also running out for her mother. Moss is reminded of this in everything.  She sees it in the propellers on the plane, and also in her own ageing. Moss is also seeing God as a parent now. A parent “ Searching for signs of spring.” Thylias Moss is using a narrative. She is telling about life from her point of view. First the poem is from the point of view of a mother, then in the end the mother ages into an old woman. It is the story of her life, and the story of all our lives, as they turn out in the end.