waiting

Waiting

Sunshower at six and outside my window,

The rays are reflecting off the pools it leaves

Like mirrors that only reflect the sky.

I’ve rotted in this chair all afternoon:

Checking the clock,

Scratching the back of my thumb,

Running my fingers over my temples and through the coils of my hair

Like an insect-machine picking its tendrils for legs

To ensure the function is executed, sighing,

And checking the clock again.

Outside, the kids all rush

With soaked-through jackets, pointless umbrellas above their heads.

Why? It’s something I’m sure you could understand

And I could, too, if you would explain it to me.

Evergreen lightning-branches outstretch by the window

As if to hand me a glowing gift

But I already have one picked out in my pocket just for you.

Heavy now, the rain slams against the screen

In almost a TV static that soothes what I just can’t get out,

What I am fated to put instead in notebooks with pens,

While I sit and you go with the holocene like we’re supposed to,

And what I push down with my fresh laundry 

As nine o’clock comes and you don’t call.

The storm slows, then stops. 

You have settled like the wet dirt outside, wriggling with a heartbeat felt through the surface,

And I whir, I click, I spark.