Improbable summer storm

Maybe the poem is ever
and only a song for the dead,
news of the living day
poured into a simple glass
for oblivion’s repast,
for you to remember and savor
and be comforted
wherever you are.

I can’t hardly start
a poem anymore without
thinking of you, brother,
without addressing it your
way, as if lowering down
a trope on a paper rope
or casting it onto blue washes
would invoke a tug back,
the ghost of a smile
blessing the last line.

We’re into full summer now,
days hot and humid, the
sky washing over us
like feral breath,
combing desire and
malodor and growth over
the roofs and byways.

94 degrees yesterday
with no promise of rain,
a swelter which no amount
of air conditioning
could quite quell
the brilliance and malice,
humidity rendering
the clouds into vague
yellow ghosts overhead.

In such oppression
we work at our labors,
bent further to the task
worrying about mortgages
and marriages or the
impossibilities thereof,
past and future days
pressed against the window
like a beggar
desperate for every
coin of happiness
in our pockets.

And yet something sings,
soft and sireneal, naked on
a beach I can’t quite see
nor ever will reach,
a sursurrant aria of
waves and rainfall,
a lover’s tongue at my ear.

Ghostly, I know, but
no more or less than you,
love and death
in equal measure
here at summer’s noon.

Who would guess
that at last light of day
rain would be falling
from a freak storm on
the radar, just a dribble
at first and then a true pour,
lightning bolts distant,
taking a dozen heartbeats
to follow with thunderous
booms that rattles the floorboards
scampering our cats
behind the couch.

Almost enough to quell
the heat of the upstairs bedroom
where the a/c’s been running
futilely all day—almost but
not quite enough as my
wife and I lay there
in the late lavish heat
with rain falling outside,
groaning down into the
arms of sleep so weary
of the difficulty of it all,
so in love with each other,
afraid of tomorrow,
keepin’ on keepin’ on
in the thrall of full summer,
the roaring world without you.

And the rain is a blessing
which tides us to sleep,
the softest of angel wings
beating upon the roof,
causing us to hold hands
and begin our drift off,
the last waking thought
in my mind like a tug of
that rope that ends
with your smile.