Today a rainstorm caught me
and I still have not recovered
myself with drier blankets
The brown leaves blowing
off the trees, squirrels
and robins cheering them on, but not

cheering me     And anxiousness has an owl
by the throat, has me pill-popped up
to Heaven Hill, head spinning one hundred eighty
degrees, looking to the past and the future
for some news about the present

which of course is useless     Even I know that     Mean-
while, Agnes upstairs plays with Grace—
the little neighbor girl—not the idea of unmerited
forgiveness in light      The two of them make up
words to no music or to My Fictions
and The Saddest Landscape

Sometimes it’s hard to say which,
no matter how hard I pretend to listen
I am no expert at thunder and lightning
I am no expert at eggbirds and ghost-
typing the air to remember a song

Today a rainstorm caught me up
The rain came down, and it still comes down
The rain comes down is all I know

about how sometimes life finds me stupid on the porch
with a couple of empty beer bottles,
humming and waiting for god knows what, some
warm weather to calm me, a few minor thoughts
All these days, reasons end somewhere

The water still rolls with an owl in its blood
We reverberate through it very softly