Crazy Rain

Twilight.
The dull insanity of rain.

Your mother is telling ghost stories
to the wind. Her words are lost
like indulgences that caused the great split of faith.
You remember for the first time in years
the act of contrition you repeated like a charm
before sleeping. You were a child then
with nothing to be sorry for. The rain
taps the glass, its black fingers
burgling your dreams. It is the stranger
at the door asking directions.
You shoot the bolt. Trust was the first thing
you were missing. Then love saying its name
against the crack in the window.
But it sounded wrong. It sounded
like a scheme. Someone was trying to get in.
You nailed the boards
over those openings. Only the rain
swiveled through the fish-scale roof
taking the way
of least resistance. Now it draws
a silhouette of loss on the ceiling
over your bed. Those four posts,
the evangelists. You slept in their
care under the guardian wings
of angels plucked
for your comforter.

You're no child any longer.
The child you were
cringes from this sentence and grows small
as a comma.
Each impersonation of the mirror
frightens you. The bone and ash
of your ancestors. The name you sign.
The ghost
in your head who suddenly remembers.

The rain is unfeeling. It pits the earth.
The earth is unfeeling too.
What are you doing here
expecting to be loved.

It rains, it rains
like crazy.

from Blue Woman Dancing in the Nerve by Joan Colby
Alembic Press