This porched morning stretches
oceanward,
until it rains.
This is no happy summer:
it is weighty pondering
it brings heaven to earth
in a bolt of lightning
it electrifies the sea and
casts airbrushed stripes
of light atop the horizon
but it does not rain
yet.
The shore is
damp from the night before -
a thousand half-thought words
pattered down
smack, smack, smack
little bird feet running
towards and away.
They smell rain,
coming soon again
they love the wind preceding.
The air is expectant,
whipping pages
back and forth and back
and forth
the book will finally
snap shut when it rains.
The ocean rears and curls and sways unsteadily
nature inhales and bites cold.
It feels almost wrong
to be here, now,
solitary
without sun
awaiting the rain.

If you read this
carefully, you’d know
it was about you
and you’d mention it
the next time you saw me
you’d say just the right thing.
You don’t love to read
or even like it at
all, sometimes.
It's in the reflection of your
eyes, glassing over as
you trudge through
your morning news articles
but you finish them
anyway.
If you read me
carefully, you’d know
I am all about you
even when your eyes
glass over as
you pick me apart,
trying to figure out
what makes words
so **** important.
I’ll tell you later
that you already know,
if only you’d read
between the lines
of me and you.

I sat by your porch and
watched the flowers I left
wistfully wilting with every
passing hour
of the time you couldn’t spare me
and it felt like tar
on my tongue
when I wanted to say I loved you
and instead swallowed
lumps
of snot and tears.