August

In the evening of the hottest day it rained.
It rained as if the day had been waiting all day to rain.
The sun still shone, a few small cumulus clouds
floating
It rained hard and silver,
parting the heat of the city with broad strokes.
Afterwards,
rain dripped from leaves and branches
for hours.

High Water Mark in an Old Building

After the flood, they marked the height the water reached,
four inches down from the ceiling,
with a chalk line and the year,
as though marking the growth of a child:
something to be passed through on the way to
a more expansive and undefined whole.

But the water marked its own way,
curling like the lip of a dark shadow
across the knotted wood of the floor and walls.

Years later, the chalk line remains,
as if to assert that things will never be this bad,
as though the universe were not willful and cruel, like a child
before he learns that cruelty is to be served one spoonful at a time,
like a rich dessert in a fine restaurant.

But beneath that chalk line you find another line,
and another date. And beneath that, another,
marking an older flood, an older shadow
of another time we thought
things could only get better.

Home Building and Safe Keeping / Purpose and Destiny

I build my days with little pieces...
waking, eating something, opening and closing a door.
Hold things together with bits of something
and bits of nothing
guard it with the dark tents of sleep.
After so many years I realized
there were many rooms but no house.

Possession: What if God gave you something precious
and you hid it in a locked box in the darkest room:
Did he really mean that you should only keep it safe?

So I wrapped my existence in plastic, like a white sofa,
to guard from spills and dust and the wear and tear of me.
You came over and sat down.
You asked, "What are you saving this for?"