As I wait for my name
to be called, it starts
to rain. Slowly,

stuttering at first
but then a downpour,
thick grey sheets

hammering onto the windows,
as though the whole building
is being peppered

with paintballs. A woman no older
than me enters, her coat slippery
with the sky's remains,

blue umbrella like
a dishevelled animal. The receptionist
says 'you poor thing.'

I wonder how many times
she'll say that today. The doctor
asks for me. He's running late.

Ten years on, he left flowers where
she rests. Said the same as he's said
every year since.

When his eyes stopped stinging
he came home, fed the cat,
pulled the old green motor

out from the shed, began
swimming the lawn. She would be
on the bench now with a lemonade

and one of those puzzles she liked
to do. An ordinary afternoon, and if
she got stuck, he'd silence the machine.

Again he is raking the leaves -
flimsy rusted shapes
made slick by more rain -

One of the local boys walks past -
raises a hand in
a muteless greeting

and the raker holds
a gloved palm up in return
and wonders if his former

schoolteachers are still
living. They would be a century
old now, if not more.

the sun is just
lovely. just lovely.
tennis

with cheap racquets
in our white
slip-on

shoes, pauses for fizzy
liquids, to swipe
branches of sweat.

so lovely
the sun and I could
let you captivate me

here for the rest
of the summer, then another
summer if we

keep doing
the things we love
to do now, if we poorly

play tennis in the sun
and don't forget it is lovely.
this. summer.

Mentally I am at Phillies with my final
coffee of the evening, milk
frothed to perfection, a woman
in a cerise blouse who greets
my eyes with a noiseless hello

but this is not 1942, no
salt shakers and once-
bitten sandwiches.
There's a child in a red puffer
who waddles absentmindedly,

the spittle of his bearded father
I can almost feel fleck
my cheek. His tired cherry-lipped mother
pointing a finger, then
another, mouths opening

as if operated
by an unseen string and strangers
who scoff at the hawks in the room,
both jolted by each other's next barb,
with a toddler oblivious to art, to

shades, to the thorns his loved
ones drape across their throats,
this spat like a blot on the canvas
of my afternoon reverie
where I need a stronger tipple

and to make it home before the rain.

The air dense with the prospect
of something quite dangerous
but delicious, the way
a body sways in shadow, memories
on the floor in a many-limbed
black knot                    but someone’s skin and
someone’s skin touches in
the space between strobe lights
with a movement fluid, sensual,
snap of a signal,
electrical, audible pulse and temples
in sweat sets them in motion,
a parallel language
spoken with the eyes,
fingers on waist.

maybe now it begins
     the dust made a home
     on the half-halcyon years

enough easing in
     they'll be expecting you slowly
     but consistently enough

to chalk up the highlights
     that make a fulfilled life
     alone or not alone

but with an always orange glow
     flame tilts to change
     wax drips to history