Rain

Always, before rain, the windows grew thick with fog.

Mist descended over the evening rooftops

and rain made generalities of the neighborhood.

Rain made red leaves stick to car windows. 

Rain made the houses vague. A car

slid through rain past rows of houses.

The moon swiveled on a wet gear above it.

The moon—a searchlight suspended from one of the airships—

lit the vague face peering through the windshield,

the car sliding down the rain-filled darkness

toward the highway. The men controlling the airships

were searching for him,

and he passed through the rain

as a thought passes through the collective mind

of the state. Here I am in this rain-filled poem, 

looking out my kitchen window into the street,

having read the news of the day—

we are hunting them in our neighborhoods,

they have no place among us—

and now the car has turned the corner and disappeared

into the searchlights that make from the rain

glittering cylinders of power.