The dark returned after the time change.
Cargo planes left by twos all day

shaking houses under them. Snow slipped
in and out of the rain like news

of the war trickling down—three more
soldiers lost. No gnashing

of clouds, there was a sky
to obliterate in Waukegan, Kenosha,

Lincoln Way West out past Bonnie Doone’s.
It rained according to the laws of rain

all over my cat Jeoffrey and the Icneuman rat.
I stayed in with a bad movie.

No one told me to turn off the damned
TV. It rained clarinets.

C130s shook the house
as they climbed out, grumbling

into the overcast. There was a beginning,
a middle, and no end to the rain.

It could have rained wives
betrayed by politician husbands

but they were already wrung dry.
We fixed pasta with marinara sauce.

I listened to turboprops throb
in full surround stereo through the walls.

They lumbered over in pairs for protection.
It rained on the emperor’s sarcophagus.

It rained on the inquisitor’s
sensitive fingers. It reflected red neon

in Copenhagen Streets. It rained
silly putty. It rained campaign promises.

It rained democrats and republicans—
the yard filled with red and blue states.

People, happy in their loneliness, did not
want them knocking at the door.