Gullywasher—what they call a hard rain that now floods all intersections here. It comes as suddenly as it goes. We wait until it's it's hot and dry again. Then, the wind is a mirage or a hallucination. In the morning, overturned pots. A stream of white pebbles that lay at the bottom, dribbled all over the steps. We hear cries in the night, or high-pitched hissing. We think raccoons in heat, or thieving. Over two days, internet connections flicker in and out intermittently. I fold and refold clothes, find the missing pairs of socks. Wonder how to move father's bones when mother dies. Someone suggests looking up a repellent spray made to mimic coyote urine. We worry about the smell. The heat intensifies each day. Outside, it even feels hard to breathe. I eat salted watermelon seeds to engineer a more urgent craving for iced water. Pale hulls collect on a napkin like a hill of discarded wings. In the backyard, the lavender struggles, and the potted lemon. The fig holds on to clusters of green fruit. The crows stay away. We know from experience the hydrangea will come back. It has to come back. At night, our ears attune to the smallest drip of water: toilets flushing, the slow rise of the level in the tank.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
