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 from parking lot to book store without the aid of an umbrella like how their locals do, somehow cool with getting wet, unhurried as they sip their coffees black
I renounce sugar packets and follow suit: bitter coffee, rain, toasting to this combination forged on their puddled streets that see more poets per square mile than anywhere else in the country
Magicians can have Vegas, its illusions Asians, San Francisco and its gold bridge
I think I should just have this coffee, and this rainy day as the poem it is.