Kathleen
Lynch
Serious
Weather
This
time you say: Look how wet
the
world is. Roofs are stepping stones
in
brown ponds. Hang paintings
higher
in the museum. Keep
your
galoshes by the door. Or don’t
say
anything. Water goes
on
flowing. On every channel
they
count how many days now
tell
about their lives
just
sunk. Just washed away.
Everything.
Everything. The same
as
when the sky spreads its broad
blue
sponge & takes it all back.
Whole
families
of
corn stalks crackle dry
pathetic
tunes in blanched fields.
Lips
of the lakes pull
back
and back and back. Front
page
states how long we’ve gone on
like
this. You say: Look how dry
the
world is. You say
Oh
when will this ever end?
Non-Cinematic
Departure
Actually
she leaves on a Greyhound.
Actually
no one comes to stop her.
The
children cry and pee.
One
gets gum stuck in his hair.
His
brother gets diarrhea
while
they wait between buses.
Everyone
hot and wretched.
The
bus has bad breath. Exit ramps
blur
by. The boys kick seat backs
and
each other. Finally they slump
tangled
in exhaustion. She dozes.
In
her dream somewhere near Fresno
things
are different: She’s in a dining car.
The
children sleep sweetly in their berths.
Two
daisies tremble in the vase by the window.
Tea
is steeping in a fat white pot when he enters.
It
is a wordless exchange. He sees everything
in
her face. He understands why she must leave.
Never
raises a hand. You can tell by his eyes
he
forgives her. Wheels turn rhythmically.
She's
rocked deeper asleep, then jostled
awake.
Every scene the window offers
it
takes away.
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