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.