On rainy days
I look up poems set in Seattle,
then look back at the rain set against the window
I imagine the water was carried here
from the shores of their bay
across Pike Place, through Belltown,
in buckets they use
to carry Pacific salmon off fishing boats,
or in lidded Styrofoam bowls used
to take out clam chowder
I practice walking in this manner, sans umbrella, through the parking lot of a South Florida strip mall.
When I reach the 24-hour Dunkin Donuts, past the laundromat and the check cashing store, I channel my inner Seattleite: poised in wet socks,
unrushed as the sips they take from their mugs when its **** pouring outside
I renounce sugary accoutrements and have what they're having:
Black coffee with a splash of rain,
A balance perfected on their slanted hill streets
that breed more poets per capita
than anywhere else in the country
Vegas can have its mirages in the desert
San Francisco, its gold bridge
I think I should just have this coffee,
and this rainy day
as the poem it is.