Words to the Wet

We sit on the sofa and smell cinnamon 

in your cocoa. All our sprinkling words

listen to droplets on the roof and a Bach 

harpsichord underneath a cloud clap. 

You and I hang on like the maple’s green 

chandelier seeds, and I think the world

is lost to us this wet afternoon.

We try to brighten faded lives, 

wondering who will listen to our poems. 

We write and rewrite as we hear them, 

re-creating ourselves from brain and finger 

to mouth and worry, quiet in falling wet 

and volume in a stonewashed downpour. 

I wonder how long before the electricity 

goes out and words turn on our lights.