Spring 1986 · Vol. 15 No. 1 · p. 59
Once in the Rain
I explain earth’s water cycle
to our son. We lean together
over the page, over the diagram
of life with its curved arrows,
the ocean giving up
a part of itself
in little shivering lines
to the clouds, the child
drinking from a glass;
elemental, unalterable,
except I recall
how once in a warm autumn rain
you took me naked to the deck,
how as I lay curved
in your arms, your dampness
entering all of me,
we dissolved together as if
God had never separated
land and sea,
how we drifted up
over the cedar tips
and the slant of the roof
and hovered there,
how for a long moment
we were certain that
we would never know thirst again.
