Bad Day

He stood there, a case of beer tilting his frame on the slick and shining street.  He had been in the rain that day, he thought.  He had been there.  Clouds were still moving low and fast and yellow above him, and he paused, looking up, exhausted to his bones.  A long breath in.  One out.  It dawned on him now what a horrible day it had been.  The day, a thing, a space in time.  He felt like he had been in a fight- pummeled and bruised, but still standing.  Standing there beneath those clouds, breathing that air.  And there he stood: still trying to exude some sort of good into the world.  One more deep breath, and he stepped toward the stairs.

I have not been what I could- no, I have been washed away.

Light
spills surreptitious
from where the lightning and the thunder
reign inscrutable-
gifts no car stereo could pronounce,
no prim suit could bless forth-
the weight and worth of which the strongest ink
could not shoulder
(catch me!).

Slick and intense,

it turns so quickly gray.

Mashed and muddled and rendered invisible.

(It’s us.  it’s all us.)

It is darkness, here,
that flows-
that runs in drains.
Sparked and shimmered
purple silver
that collects and whirls in pools
on the parched, pocked, and dusty concrete
and on our desiccated skin
(we are so thirsty! who brush aside,
and hide from the rain!).