The weather turned bad and I got happy.
That’s wrong—I mean the morning sky

was ash blue, birds on the ground. I mean
not happy but good, not good

but fastened, steady, like every train in the city
was running late, but no one minded.

On 12th Street, tarpaulin swelled
and bowed in wind. Rain drove straight

through a woman’s dress. And again
on Hollis, that slowness: damp black

trees, the line of streetlights
paced like breath. I pulled over. Leaves

dripped like rinsed hands.
A girl held her mother 

by the shoulders on a porch.