Rain pounds the awnings like Parliament, a groaning, moaning opposition to the motion outward into morning. Rain rustles in the street like referendums, dense, verbose, broken into articles, footnotes, addenda, dog-eared. Drop by drop, a gavel cracks in a plastic bucket, the ayes and nays tallied, it seems the roof is leaking. But in a narrow victory, by god, the clarity of water has been struck down, must needs repair is denied appropriation.