The Rain

The rains came last night
sweeping the homeless off of Market Street
Flushing them into doorways
Pressing their bodies against the churches

I didn't notice at the time
I was clearing dishes
Scrubbing glasses and plates
There had been a party
I did not attend
My girl said my manners were just awful
Instead I went to a bar and drank away the evening until I knew I had to go home
The party was winding down
I started clearing the plates and the bowls
Pouring left over curried chicken into plastic baggies
The rains came last night
Flushing the junkies in the Mission down into the Bart stations
Washing the needles from the corner of 16th and Mission into the gutter
Cleaning the storefronts with dull amber clouds

When the rains came I was washing dishes
The last of the dinner party already gone
I waited to hear her breath on the bed
I cleaned the counters
She lay, waiting
I tossed the trash
Washed the oven
Every spoon gave reprieve from the steady march of my thoughts
And when she was finally asleep I crawled into bed with them
With my infidelities and curled to the wall
To be alone with the wall
I didn't know the rains had come
The rains struck across the Haight
Mudslides in Buena Park had residents wide eyed and scared because nowhere in San Francisco is there more indifference to the
addicted and the poor than in Haight Ashbury
The rains popped colors on the overpriced stores lining the street
The reds off of Wells Fargo Bank
Blue for Villians, and Villian's Vault

In the morning my baby stretched her leg across me
Pulled me to her
I could hear the cars on their way to work just outside of our window
But it seemed a long way away
My baby covered me in her blankets
Sleepy, I crawled closer in, not yet awake
Her hand covered my mouth
Her legs held me tightly
She pulled my hand behind me
I started to say something
But could not come with the words
Outside the sounds were raising
The shouts
People on their way to work were noticing that the rains had come across San Francisco
My baby kissed me lightly on the cheek
Held me with her legs
The workers were crowding the Muni's platforms
The bikers didn't want to ride on the wet streets
The Muni cars were louder, echoing against the black asphalt
The rains, the rains
My baby enclosed me
Hit me
Held me pinned to the bed
Brought me into her
Washed me against her
Punished me, scratched me, slapped and squeezed me
So that for moments I forgot exactly what I had done
I forgot my infidelities in moments when she covered my face with her hand and whispered to me to be quiet, to be quiet against the storm
By the time my baby went back to sleep it was almost 8a.m.
I pulled on my socks and shoes
Stepped outside
And noticed the rains
Men were building a facade on a building near Castro and Sanchez
The rains had come
The air smelt clean
The rains would not be undone
Not by garbage or exhaust
Or smoke billowing in piles from factories a million miles high
Nothing takes back the rains
I stepped off to work
My feet louder on the wet pavement
Everything is louder after a rain
I felt happy...
Beneath the crush of the fresh morning air
Happy like a hollow reed in the dust

***

poetry

fiction