Complaints to the Rain

Grant Clauser

Sometimes we wish for more
water, and sometimes less,
that’s the problem with all of us—
tottering this way and that,
light that burns and light
that makes the tomato fat.

I never met an undecided snake.
Creep and curl, strike when ready,
bind and eat. There is no maybe.
When you look one in the eye,
one side at a time, you get nothing
back, and that’s the point. 

If half a conversation is body language,
and half our body’s cells are new
since yesterday, then your tongue
is always a foreign ocean to me,
the way your hands move
like a boat upon the waves.

Come out of the rain now
and dry your hair, your hands.
Every body is mostly water,
especially eyes, and water’s magnet
always draws it to itself.
Waves are infinite you know,
they just get too small to see.