The Poetry Society

Shutters slam under the first clenched

fist of wind, rain rinsing dust from streets

from parched roofs where gulls scream

at sheet lightning shocking

the flambé of the sea.

This is God showing us something beyond reason,

beyond the the mere facts of updraft,

electrified ice, charged air;

static lifts your hair, thunder bursts

the mountains' brittle bubble-wrap.

Wind shakes everything the town leaves loose:

trees, shop signs, litter, the frocks of girls

speeding home on mopeds; darkness

is a sudden thumbprint inking the town

and I know whatever we're looking for is here,

suddenly close as inheld breath.

A drenched expectancy.

That fist again, then rain's dialectic pattering,

the way thoughts unsooth a mind

used to the stillness of elsewhere.

We try to sleep, chilled in the tiled apartment;

you're cradled in some dream

like a stranger dozing on a train,

my hand on your hip, your body cool

between the cotton touch of sheets.

This morning, clouds shrink from the bay's

douche of blue, heat distilling purer air,

the monastery gaping on its spoiled mountain,

its terraces falling, its villas

shining in their duplicate glory.