D. James Smith

RAIN

Still vast, lung-wet, I lie there, awhile,
Trickling out of the tiny cracks in my wrists.

I waken slowly, cold as the sea and remember.
Days I drove home weeping for nothing

I could name but the bruised afternoons coming down
Or your wet hair in the evenings, pearls of perspiration

Beading your ears, the nape of your neck.
Dark hallway and a bed at the back

And a night wind blowing rain sideways
Sounding like tacks flung against the windows.

And we, there, rising and falling
With those birds in the wallpaper trees.

–D. James Smith

Poetry