Plain Song

An uncalled-for
refrain --
curtain-call --

the tall
windowpanes
swish rain.

from my last collection, Fade Street.

A day of heavy, fleshy downpours interspersed with those fairytale blue clearings. Indoors, I noticed when the quality of light in the room altered and we looked out to see that evening had flicked on its sepia bulb. Then the rain came, again, drumming the windows, battening the hatches, drawing things in.

D was over for the night, and P joined us for awhile. We watched The Road, which D had never seen, though we had all read the book (or, rather, had been swallowed and rapidly digested by its harrowing narrative). Considering that D and P were both going through unhappy periods in their lives, this might seem like an odd choice. But of course it makes little difference. The pleasure (and it is always a pleasure) is in being teleported decisively elsewhere. In its own, more subtle way, rain does that too. Roll on the (fictional) apocalypses.