The Continuum

Sometimes rain is cathartic—sometimes I find myself drowning
in a puddle without ever getting wet. The feather of a cardinal
swims in the bird bath, I hold my hands up like a camera lens
and snap the red burning inside the black and white photo of my life.

You lay sleeping, a wind instrument made of rib bones inside your chest
whistles between open lips and I am watching. When the rain stops beating
against the shingles, your wet shoes will waterlog the hardwood, drowning
the sound of the slow-dripping faucet in the hallway; you pretending
it hasn’t been leaking this whole time, and me gnawing at my own skin
like a mouthpiece, water seeping inside my eardrum, but the rain never stops.

Lori DeSanti