Weighing the Water

A poem.

To call the rain, life must be whirled away —

Even with industrial dust weighing the water, soaking is a ritual.

Layer after layer, droplets crawl through the fabric. I do not run to hide. I want my pelt and water to meet. The smell of dripping hair. The way the rain falls into my eyes, into my mouth, feeding me with drops tasting like iron.

When I was a child, I lived with books. Detached. While it rained, no one told me to play.

Every drop was my partner in disappearance.

We still waltz when life postpones its errands.

Yellow lights pulse on a nearby crossing. Courier stops her bike in a chipped arcade. When umbrellas cover faces…

Steel skies are the most persistent of comforts.