Sestina for Rain
It comes in the night, like a mother, rain
stealing into our dreams, lulling us, hush
hush, a lullaby sung beyond the window,
curtains shut tight against streetlights
that now hiss and stutter, now flicker
yellow and out, yellow and out, a hand
passed over our eyes in a game. Take hands
in the street for the night dances, the rain
now a drummer drumming at our feet, hush
hush and together, the beat a window
to a collective dream. Lighter and light
we are turned and lifted – gold starts, flickers
against the earth’s mirror. The dream flickers
and fails and morning steals the night, its hands
a lullaby on the sheets as the rain
flattens hayfields to a yellow hush
as hush, go wind and rain at the window.
We’d almost forgive the rain if the light
were more forgiving and give up its light-
fingered steal on the morning. Night flickers,
yellow drifts of pollen on our hands
from a dream of hayfields. The street is rain-
rushed, rain-rocked, rain-sung, a lullaby, hush,
hush as rain dances open a window
into the earth. We stand at our windows,
a dream collective wishing the light
would shatter the steel-fall of rain, flickers
of yellow birds, a pair of gold hands.
Instead, the street is curtained with rain, rain
fills the fields, the lanes, as the drains go hush
hush, a lullaby. The street is all hush
hush with rain, a dream song at our windows
where we sit, collectively, and watch light
dim and stutter, dip, falter and flicker,
matches struck in the cups of our hands
against the night, against the wind, the rain
an incessant hush, hush at the window
where light flickers yellow and out, yellow
and out, our hands cups, the mothers of rain.