Janessa Doe

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

and 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 heaps can wait when he’s on his way

like the damn ache that seems to stay

and makes him late.

Just in time for April in his tee alone

when he doesn’t make it home till it clings

like wet to his nose.

At that,

with a knot in his back

and a fever,

he gets in bed

now flat for a sleeper,

a 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 can shut the curtains when it is rather bright

and are hot to touch

but only on the inner side.

For weeks of rain,

a dry home is made

for he keeps a bucket in place for spate.

And when he thinks he is tight,

he trusts no pipe to stay,

so with a rate,

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 coat 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.

He eats his coins in the dupe

then wakes moist in a room like soup.

When the cracked window dares to flow with air,

his own act last noon with no tact shows clear.

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.

He sucks his teeth

and he swears and groans

but when he huffs

it coasts free

from a pair of holes.

In the dusky room

beneath the stream of the sun he knows,

it seems to be 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.