it rains
and i smile.

dopamine pumps

as water vapor
excited by evaporation
and
exalted by the elevation,
wishes to remain in the clouds.

but the float is fleeting
and eventually a rain falls.
with it the water,
so enlightened by the episode,
returns to the surface
as it was before
but somehow new.

to remember but never miss being a gas,
understanding the evanescence of effervescence

while

everblue junipers
caress the wet sidewalk
and twigs hug the curb
as they float down the street.

tomorrow sand will appear
at the edges of the road.

I haven't
watered my garden
in over a week.

but
now spear shaped tendrils
of liquid hydrogen monoxide
plummet down at
twenty two miles per hour
making patterns across the
wet surface of the earth.

in the bright spots
rain drop splashes
stumble back and forth
across the dance floor
like cymbal crashes.

wasps,
grounded
by wet wings,
begin their slumber
early,
jaws locked,
legs dangling
off the stem of a flower
whose petals are
battered and wet.

the newly
pregnant
ocean
swells unnoticeably.

streams emerge,
rivers rob banks,
puddles form
around
orangeskin pores;

and the
everblue junipers
caress the wet sidewalk.

triggering

the docile drum
of dopamine,
pulsing,
pumping.
prompting
the corners
of the
eating,
speaking,
spitting hole
to elevate,
elongate, ebb,
and stretch apart
exposing crooked
violent jagged bones
that broke our gum.

the docile drum.

as water vapor
comes to understand
the evanescence of effervescence
to a syncopated beat,

i smile.