RollingTurtle » New Writing

Warm Rain [April 2004]

A lukewarm rain
which is almost a warm rain
covers lazy Providence
head to toe
for the thirtieth
or thirty-first day
in a row.
Warm rain:
the unassailable quality
that makes a woman
a woman
fills the reservoirs
mends the brittle winter stalks
into something worth
staining your knees on.
I keep expecting
things to get easier
as I get older
water to be
less wet
to feel less afraid
of doing the wrong thing
all the time. But everybody new
looks like somebody else,
reminds you of people
you’ve hurt and people
you wish you could hurt
again. Common sense,
like a riot squad
beat me past locked elbows,
shoved me out in the world.
I got all soft
and sloppy
raw nerves dangling
off the edge of my lips
worrying how to pay
those student loans
to buy back
the time that I
squandered. And so I say
to you now,
Providence, to you
who are in my employ,
who purchase blue jeans
and ramen noodles
with the tinklings
of my good favor...
I say to you: I
was not born a manager
nor was I born a man
who sits. I am a man
who runs free
on black asphalt
who is patient
for warm rain
who is possessed
by the spirit of the law
though he narrowly
escaped the letter. I am
also a plague
who needs to eat
slinking from festering home
to festering home
nestled in the blood of rodents
cruising the slick gutters
almost brave enough
to eat babies to survive
not quite viscous enough
to resist this rain
pounding on the dead
rock of Providence,
raising an alarm
of grasses
and waterfowl,
nourishing the shellfish
that will nourish
the next generation of
soldiers and liars
wives and slaves
pounding an alarm
of rushing debris
dark horizons
and early twilights
giving us all
in this loop-de-loop city
one final chance to say
I am not ready for
summer! or, I wish
I were born a woman, or
Today, I want to bake you
some goddamn cookies
instead of telling you
what to do!
and not because
I am too turned around
to do otherwise
but because the fleshy palm
of Providence
has raised me straight
into the face of this storm
and I can see
very well
what’s coming
if I do not
bow down
and get clean.