for Barry G.
"Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be eaten or drunk by an animal, including humans, for nutrition."
-Wikipedia
teach me how to fish by voice
to keep trumpets for the day I drown
past this bread and water life
to savor the clouds like inviolable
children, to pencil in my own lightning
when the ocean forgets I need
salt on my hands and knees
to season my erosion, to push through
the old sunken minefield I call
home when I'm asleep, to remember
the heart's navy can rescue me from
any evil I imagine
Smell Right Before and Just After the Rain
ReplyDeleteI breathe from my nose
on days I think it might rain, bating the scent.
And the clouds are rumbling their apologies,
hanging out the rain
in sheets, so it could dry
by the chatter of the winds.
It’s the thick kind of rain,
gusting sideways to keep up
with the rush of passersby.
I look up, let the rain bounce into my nose.
The drips are a beautiful symmetry,
translusentual the way it spread.
when the wind takes a breath,
the rain straightens,
colloids,
falling verticallycertain.
The storm raises the neighborhood’s
blinders like three days after Christmas lights come down
and brown pine needles
bleed from street to street.
No one’s looking
out for anything.
Johns and Janes are sheltering themselves
with free newspapers
and the popped collars of waterproof coats.
My coat has no collar.
Street vending machines are all empty.
And the rain is weakening, anyway,
only enough to alert a conscious observer.
Crowds of grass rub elbows,
finish drinking themselves heavy, they fall asleep.
The clouds' candy paint,
a lucid mix of grays, blues, and a pink,
seems dry in the eyes of passersby
and the white is pushing through.
I’m looking for that smell of survival,
the sweetness
soaking into the concrete,
the vapor
always following
the rain’s retreat.