This morning, strolling soddenly
down Harmon street, the rain
became a sudden shield; with sudden
clarity I felt calamity
dismissed, shuttered
briefly with the clouds’ transparent
lunacy. The sheltered space
beneath was still translating
fervently, cells poised
briefly on the boundary
of becoming the assimilable. Not
yet being there, such a place is to be
seen deliberately, as borders reveal
incongruities, as prose must be
read closely when graphite
sweep beneath a phrase
suggests. The will to change
a grave performance in such
fickle times. Now damply
conscious of their bent
for transmutation, thick
sheets of leaves plastered
the streets; the green
shadow of a maple cast wet
stars onto the sidewalk. My
hands opened like magnolia
trees, glimpsed quickly in their
fenced backyards. The gutters of
the bakeries ran as roses
wet with rain were drinking
water. A line kaleidoscoped
with wet umbrellas hugged
the borders of the parking lots.
The tiny fingers of the rain were
pointing, as people in their glassed-in
porches cycled backward
through their states of grief, as I
drifted by in states of dream or
discontent, thinking that so much
depends: on a white truck, glazed with pink
blossoms; on the rushing
gutter’s puddle sea; on one moment that
the world has underlined, and seen.
