Downpour

From the time I learned about horoscopes and elements
I was enchanted. Every year I learned more about symbols,
just enough to keep me hoping I was special. A fire sign.


It’s raining again. The St. Augustine sprouts up, exuberantly
green. Puddles pool around the front door, fill the cracked
driveway, the backyard cedes to a pond.


Quiet, listening to the rain, hovering above melancholy,
I can almost chuckle at the idea that I’m a fire sign,
that the year I was born, the planets whirling over me
made me passionate or driven, that some pattern of stars
...


I would rather be a fire sign. I could combat doubt,
force someone to believe in me, make something
happen.


But I love water. Falling from the sky, pooling up
in the streets, slowing traffic. I love diving in,
whelmed by the cool comfort of pressure,
the oxygen bubble that is me, bounced up
to gasp and breathe.


I want to make something of that. I need certainty.
When I was baptized and the priest poured water
over my eager forehead, was some magic made?
I’ve loved church. There is water and fire.


Men walk on surfaces which cannot sustain me.
Are purged by fire and speak what I’ll never
understand. Wine gathers on my tongue,
in my cheeks, and rinses away dry bread crumbs.


And oh. How I cry. Enough for all to know water
is what moves in me. If you believe in such things.


Maybe I am just sad.


Note: This is new. Perhaps too much I. Let me know. thanks, RO