The Rain Gauge
The looming float of sheet metal
passed our second story window,
a detached garage that just cleared the phone lines.
A Volkswagen followed, cruising sideways
between the tops of power and light poles.
Our neighbors sat on the roof and cringed
at the deepening, doppler clap of a helicopter.
Their Pleasurecraft was still moored
to the driveway but the hot-tub surfaced
and departed. Someone’s cockatoo
climbed our TV antennae, and my son swears
he saw a giant minnow—something like
the black spin of an otter.
The river stayed for three days, then slid
back between it’s banks, leaving
a sequined gown and lawn chair hung
in the maple, a school of rotting fish
caught in chain-link fence.
Our house returned from the underworld
with upright coffee cups
brimming brown liquid.
And our hallway gallery--
the jack-o-lantern smiles of our 8x10
children—gone wrinkled and gray.
Illya's Honey, Fall / Winter 2010
The looming float of sheet metal
passed our second story window,
a detached garage that just cleared the phone lines.
A Volkswagen followed, cruising sideways
between the tops of power and light poles.
Our neighbors sat on the roof and cringed
at the deepening, doppler clap of a helicopter.
Their Pleasurecraft was still moored
to the driveway but the hot-tub surfaced
and departed. Someone’s cockatoo
climbed our TV antennae, and my son swears
he saw a giant minnow—something like
the black spin of an otter.
The river stayed for three days, then slid
back between it’s banks, leaving
a sequined gown and lawn chair hung
in the maple, a school of rotting fish
caught in chain-link fence.
Our house returned from the underworld
with upright coffee cups
brimming brown liquid.
And our hallway gallery--
the jack-o-lantern smiles of our 8x10
children—gone wrinkled and gray.
Illya's Honey, Fall / Winter 2010
