1.11.15

o its gonna rain

a good thing to remember when you break down
is its all the same when you break it down.
she laughed, i’ll write you off like a rich man
writes off his taxes. she carried a bottle
into the bed. her diction and mine
meant the same anyway, we were finding.
she was teaching me the ways of
Southern Ladies.
i cleaned the tub all over which red hairs climbed.
i noticed thru the window a rattle of seeds,
i breathed.
the pods dangling wind strangled twixt
and tween frogs or bugs lullaby—sucking me in
to thin wine. and i never know if it is frogs or bugs singing.
the day i gave up i wrote a poem to God who i dont know
or care to, just one coconspirator to another,
cursing him for the damn bugs wont show their faces!
you goddamned crickets! i cursed.
show your fucking selves.
and so resigned i was, at that.
went to an Al-Anon meeting with Rosemary
later. sat away from her in the back.
Just For Today they all said.
went round the room, everyone taking a turn
saying just for today i will be relaxed in traffic.
just for today i am grateful for my children.
my turn, i said just for today i am done with it.
the room waited, so i clarified, ‘all of it.’
later i stood outside by a bush smoking.
i was lost in the traffic of my thots.
i looked down at the bush and
                        here was a cricket!
i thot it was a cricket-----it looked like i thot
                            one would,
but still i second-guessed it.
my pulse worked extraordinarily a woman
comes out. fellow smoker, thankfully.
excuse me ma’am, i begged, is that bug right

there a cricket?
yes, she gazed at it.
you sure?
she looked at me. okay, okay, i told her.
thank you, and i know it is. we smoked in silence.
i got home and he had written me.
he wrote that for some time now
hed had the suspicion there were crickets actually inside
his house. hed felt sure of this, but now he had his proof----
he found a cricket in his kitchen
it was going
to be raining.