RAIN POEM

Because April is National Poetry Month and because coincidentally it's been raining for three straight days and the reports of flooding are flooding in...

RAIN POEM

My lover wants me to write her a poem,

a poem about rain of all things.

How foolish do you want me to look I ask,

everyone knows rain is a cliché.

I suppose you want this poem to be about

tearful rain or cleansing rain or oppressive rain.

Freedom rain, baptismal rain, or something 

more domestic, like diamonds on our kitchen screen, 

rain collected in street puddles that make us skip 

and swerve

on our way to the café, and too bad we forgot

the umbrella to share

and forgive me for wanting 

to hold you a little closer 

so you won't get wet.

What else? Flowers?

I suppose you'll want to hear about flowers in this poem,

they go so well together, rain and flowers,

a tide of red and yellow Columbine,

splash of Brown-eyed Susan,

thorny wash of Rose. No,

I won't fall for it.

As if I have nothing better to do today

than to contemplate rain, make of it 

a stream of words, a river of verse,

an ocean of meaning. Damn it,

more clichés, they dribble off the tongue drop

by drop without stop

and before you know it 

you're waist deep 

in a Hallmark trap of sentimentality,

you're swimming in it and over your head,

so you can't breathe,

and humiliated by acting the child;

rain, rain go away!

Let's just lie here quietly in bed for one morning

ignoring the rain

as my body barely inches toward yours,

it's the best I can do for now.

I won't mention the tap tap tap

on the skylight

or the dark round clouds

hovering over us like disproving faces,

and promise not to mention my failure 

to please you 

with the poem you so desire

or heaven help us

something as original as love.