This breeze would scarcely stir a wasp-wing;
how will it ever bear away the coming rain
massing in loose cuffs over the flat-faced slate?
It won't. The rain will squat here in the gray
like Baba Yaga's hut. My eye drowns
in the soft drift of the water petals.
There is a single white cloud, doubled
in the black water of the road. It doesn't move,
as if paralyzed. There is no joy in this place,
only this numb wisp that hangs
like a poorly glued ornament:
a quick wheeze, a gasp, a cigarette breath,
a wracked cough, a corpse-smear.