Lonely as the rain
           Falling ...

Where does a joke come from?
Oooh now that's a good question
Some people talk of a need
To describe some modern obsession
Forgetting the fact
That the gags we now guffaw at
Are age old weathered
Pieces of
Granite.

Does not the sun
that softens the wax
turn on the clay
to make it hard ?

I am the dead
woman slumped
against the shower

wall—don’t know
why, but I simply
stopped breathing,

and the water’s pelting
my face, as the dog
sits, staring at me,

as I recall how much
I hated my job,
all the politics, and

the dog is licking
my face, wondering
when I’m going to

go to the kitchen
and feed her, as my
husband is waking,

expecting his
breakfast to already
be on the table.

When the yellow/green face
of this furnace valley is smudged
with summer's first rain runs

I dream about dad again:
7 years since that hospital bed
in Georgetown where he turned

to wax and I turned to water.
In the dream I was so small,
he took me to his old '80s office,

the tan portable in the field where
everything was cheap wood panels,
thin mouse-brown temp carpet.

He sat me down by his blackboard,
jotted with number theory,
& left to retrieve a book he needed.

I sat among the dry sun and dust
until I realized I was an adult now.
Eventually a man came to the door,

& said "why are you still here?
Your dad died years ago,
& we need the room."