a safe bet.

Of course, you never really forget anyone, but you certainly release them. You stop allowing their history to have any meaning for you today. You let them change their haircut, let them move, let them fall in love again. And when you see this person you have let go, you realize that there is no reason to be sad. The person you knew exists somewhere, but you are separated by too much time to reach them again.

This is a poem about rain,
not you,
so you will forgive me
if I only refer to you in the oblique,
fleetingly,
between the L-shaped sounds
of water,
shadowy places,
and a cerise sky.
Sometimes,
when the night is deep
you are out on the streets
and I’m waiting for sleep,
I send out rain
to follow you,
lopsidedly, as if a kind
ghost, as if through an
hourglass
you were seeing
sand at a slant.
So if I open the window a little,
swaying against glass,
test the air
for a possibility of rain,
perhaps you will forget
how, sometimes,
rain is complicated,
rain can break you if it wants.
Who knew, one night
rain under streetlamps
would aspire to the condition
of glow-worms?
This rain is a letter,
how it pulses through,
angling words
out of the slow scent of raw earth,
sudden lights.
But this poem is rain,
on you.

Note to self: corn dogs and Mountain Dew do not mix. Especially when they are mixed with popcorn. And jelly beans. And also six-inches of a Fruit by the Foot. Mozzarella sticks. Uncooked bread dough. Mango-habanero wings, and a shot of wheat-grass. At least not for breakfast. Try subbing out Mountain Dew for Diet Mountain Dew. Leave the rest.