The Rainy Day

There's a barrier; a glass partition.
You can't see it,
but some deeply submerged
sensor in your brain
is dimly aware of it.

The apple is on the other side;
the grass is brilliantly green.
Where you sit is choked with corpse fumes
and grime covers the flat shadows.

The gears turn in the sky
and you start to move.
And you run faster and faster
towards that multi-colored lollipop gumdrop tree.

And BAM! You smash your head
right up against that barrier,
that obstacle, your nemesis, your satan.

Your head cracks like a soft-boiled egg
and a stream of tears trickles out
and swells into a wailing shrieking
monster ocean of grief.

All of a lifetime's fear slides out
from under the carpet and the back of the closet,
and your heart wants to tear itself from your chest,
strap on a life-preserver,
and paddle madly towards the shore.

Outrages, knife-wounds, and losses left un-mourned
rise from the water like kraken
threatening a wooden boat that's sailed off the map,
and you strap yourself to the mast and wait.

You used to love books about dinosaurs.
How many millennia did it take
for those prehistoric oceans to dry up?

David Aronson
March 2007