The rain taps out a message
so easily missed in an orchestra
of sounds or undermined
by distractions that cry out
their evocative digressions in one
of many bright ways.
The rain falls with its eyes closed,
confident of the gathering run
along the fire escape,
the waiting bustle of the pool
that forms at the foot of the barricade.
The rain comes and goes
like smoke past the window,
as aware as it needs to be
of fat and thin, blond and ancient,
simmer or sleep.
It announced itself along the street
an hour before its arrival,
and the tar and iodine
packed up shop in silence.
The dirty white cat trots oddly,
in a private angle
through the damp, and its hurry
is misread, if read as distaste.
It is rather a knowledge deeper
than mere fear of water
and the big one thing
or many little things
that are coming, barely hidden
by the screen of rain,
to mock its whiskers, taunt it
with the smooth seep of foreign
vowels, the click of ancient
consonants like something nasty
peglegging a porcelain velodrome.
The white cat is cleaning its paws.
Three drops of motor oil
spittle its half-moon back.
It appears to be watching the rain
outside, but isn’t, or maybe
the catfight of gray and steel-blue
is what it sees, shadows dancing
immense before its yellow eyes.