Monsoon

This is for the Mid-week Motif at Poets United – Flood. It is a poem I have been working on for a couple of years. I think I am finally through with it. http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2017/08/poets-united-midweek-motif-flood.html

Monsoon

“I love storms. Primordial. Every bit of civilization gone. Everything true coming out.” Vanessa Ives, Penny Dreadful

Hot. Smoldering hot.
The sky like molten bronze.
It is amazing the stones of the buildings do not explode in the heat
or melt and run in the gutters.
Rain coming. Soon. Soon.
And then the first breath –
The rain begins and
the skies rip and before I can open my umbrella
I am soaked to the skin –
The rain like cold needles drives into my skin,
stabbing into my heart and emptying it of secrets.
Steam rises from the street,
the buildings
my skin.
In the rising steam and driving rain
people move, barely seen, like wandering ghosts.
I have tried to chase away the memories.
In my mind I hear your voice
like a call that crackles from a bad connection
and disconnects before I can interpret your words.
A man bumps into me and for a moment
I think he looks like you.
But he disappears into the mist and rain
…and I accept I will never see you again.
Every time it rains, it reminds me of you.

public domain Utagawa Hiroshige People Sheltering From the Rain 1857