Alison

15

fling

our sunday morning filled with gray rain
droplets on streams of light
hitting the arid dirt land
with the force of bare
knuckles and I smiled when I heard you ask
if we could wear white

before labor day and I rolled my eyes so the white
was showing and said yes as the rain
banged on the windowsill asking
for entrance into our light
hearts and brave bare
souls I should have let the fireflies land

on our porch and listen to land-
aged cicadas singing to their white
deaths their smooth bare
wings fluttering like weeping rain
leaning on the slanting light
melding into the lake I should have asked

you when does summer end but if I did ask
we would become a plane scraping to land
wheels against red lights
as our love draped against white
tarmac sagging under the acid rain
of Norwegian skies stripping pines bare

of foliage under boldly bare
flat clouds to ask
so much of you in the drenching rain
in our house even if I needed somewhere to land
after flying too much in white
light

would be unfair to your poor light
heart and your naked bare
chin and the pale white
smoothness of your arms I’m happy I didn’t ask
because if I did you’d bring me down to land
and fill my mouth with bitter rain

from heathen foreign rains
so why are you asking me how to land
from our sky to land where no one asks