Don’t ask for rain, ask for a drumroll. They’re the same.
Overlapping rippled, whip-led, beaten with sticks, thrones and symbols.
Cloud-teased sunlight and pitch black night like a tent in the rain.
Ruined, but not unattained. Baptism is the recipe for mud. Clay.
And water. Brother in law wielding a fly swatter.
A son I thought would be a daughter.
I used to be a kid with a stutter.
Played break the ice with my speech therapist.
Lost. Froze solid. With a note to my loved ones
crystallized in blue hands. “If the cold didn’t get me

loneliness did.”