weather

three days of ohio rain. thick clouds grazing the tops of buildings. drowning in the dark: i dug my lightbox out from behind the couch this morning.

when i was little, in colorado, rain was mythic. rain didn't just come, it never stooped out of the sky of its own accord. we had to coax it from heaven, with prayers, with dances, with long dead stalks of weeds and rituals we imagined and performed from the ridges of red rock. and when it would come, finally!, we ran outside. we laid on the warm cement driveway and let rain crackle over us. we turned over our bigwheels and collected the rain in its crevices. we opened our palms and let them soak with rain. we shouted, we laughed, we jumped double-dutch, we watched it stream in flash-flood rivers down the gutters of the street. rain! rain! rain! and that night we would thank god for moisture, because that was all that was left. a filmy hint of wet along the grass, pretending not to notice the return of the sun.

in ohio, the rain is a faucet a bucket a shower a deluge. after one day of rain, two days, three, four, five, i want to punch through the clouds. i want to collect the wetness in my arms and throw it back: somewhere ... to the bosom of lake erie or the clouds that spilled it. i want it to stop. drowning me.