Ruquayyah♡𝜗ৎ

He,

the experiencer of things,

is like a ground that is spat at,

or beaten in hordes,

or is drowned,

or gathers,

heats,

and absorbs.

For him,

the heavy weather is a sudden thing

that quarantines when it comes

and doesn’t leave.

Which can’t be,

for a living thing

who prefers to drift to sleep still in his jeans,

who wakes tardy in a bed of his heap

to pick out hurriedly only what he sees. 

And on his feet,

one sock is red,

and one sock is green. 

Then he’s gathering in shops

with a basket of his arms,    

and when the darn things slip free, 

he sucks his teeth.

It’s simply better to be

when he can breathe for long,

and his smell is all clean,

when it’s swell in the fall.

Then the hard winter stings. 

And in the summer, he stinks

when that heavy weather comes

and then doesn’t leave. 

The comfort-seeker

or a cord walker,

but always the balancer of things that he has,

but doesn’t need. 

Where most fall,

he just journeys into those things

that he doesn’t lose, 

but leaves. 

And the first is free when he weeps,

then he’s alright.

He sees that the heavy weather comes on time,

and no better. 

Like the night and the day goes,

it is a play that isn’t very clever,

and from the bay window,

one can like the rain

where the murk stays on the outer end

and he shuts the curtains when it is rather bright,

and they are sweltering to touch,

but only on the inner side.

He kicks a bucket in place for leaks when it rains.

He trusts no pipe to stay when he thinks he is tight.

So he comes back late when he leaves at night

right before a chill touches the air,

with just enough means for repair. 

He keeps a hat on his head,

and a robe near his bed, 

A routine that seems a whole lot of naught for never, 

and yet.

The next start, at his most clever,

he wakes from rest which is quite fitful,

of lessons and terrors and lone,

and rises right into the presence of heavy weather in his home. 

In his throat is a catch,

and near the stove is a rat

in a hole to be patched,

but past that is a trap,

so the balance is kept,

in his palace of peace

where he is shivering,

and coughs

and huffs

through one hole for a week. 

And the month is a muddle.

At night,

he snuggles in scenes and wefts

in what’s left of a formerly habitual thing,

in his heap of a bed that lumps unfixed,

And the darn bucket in the corner is filling,

and heavy to lift, 

and sloshes the wood,

and smelling of piss!

When ice crackles from the window he lifts,

he stiffs.

He, on the other side of the murk, 

apparently, 

is in the mist.

He eats his coins in the dupe, 

then wakes moist in a room like soup.

His own act last noon

with no tact shows clear,

when the cracked window dares to flow with air! 

Wind that is sheer and cold and lurks…

The trap setter,

the curtain shutter,

the catcher of leaks

then starts from a glare that first stabs,

then is filtering

through the murk on the screen.

So, he sucks his teeth,

with huffs and swears and groans,

but they coast free from a pair of holes.

In the dark, he blinks

beneath the stream of a sun he knows,

and at once, it seems that he has his nose.

At last, he sheds his layers, his hat, 

and clasps his hands that meet in a sweat, 

and with prayers, he wept

for the chill that was felt in the air, 

all along his scalp and all through his hair, 

for the tickles that thrill and delight,

the track and lilt of the trickles at night,

that kept together the man who was thrown,

who now prays to whomever, wherever,

for the terrors,

the lessons,

and the sniffling alone,

and for the presence of heavy weather in his home.