I
The long awaited rain arrived
spun me down
into some river dream,
some water wheel spoke of a girl,
some slipstream velvet calm
where I muddied up and floated,
muddied up,
no thunderstruck, no lightening fire,
just a mindful mist, eddying out,
dew mist, unbreathable and slick
under my bare feet,
felt like wet clover,
felt like some lost summer,
some goneby where the leaves turn over
backside up to the tears, to the gray blanket
and I put my toes in
and tried to walk the dams the kids built on the curbs,
tried to make branches and tributaries,
tried to get in up to my chin
so I could hear the leaves change color,
but the downpour downpulled at my wet dress
and I slid forward into a public pool,
smelling like Coppertone and hard cold Hershey Bars,
and smelling like the way my Mother laughed
when I launched myself off the deepend,
and I sputtered and coughed and spit chlorine,
into the breakwater,
into the dim undertow
of the dim river dream rain.
