Suddenly it is cold.
Green strokes of summer, a dream.
Burnt gold of fall, a good lie.
The sea beats its heart on the shore
as fishermen beat tough octopi.
Water writhes into my life.
I must lie still, still, without slipping down.
Morning, but too cold to rise.
Tea from the tin–could it scald me to life?
The kitchen is a great distance from my bed.
The ceiling drips fine mud over my head.
Black pools poise to swallow my naked feet.
Now the Old Man presents himself at the roof
and begins to eat.
I hear his mouth tear the tiles.
I hear his teeth break on the bricks.
He is crag-boned and blind.
His bitter sleep is a journey to fury.
His waking is a new storm.
Old Man Rain, old warlock:
I am wrapped up in wool.
I hide, whorled, almost impossible to pull from my shell.
I camp under my eyelids in less treacherous seasons.
Your mouth cannot touch me.
It takes one hundred years to erode
a bowlful of stones,
but in a winterkill of wind and rain,
the mind's speckled shell cracks in a day.
I hear you lick at old faces bowed in doorways,
at stray cats under stairs, at soft scars.
You seep into my crooked joints.
That is where you try to enter me, Old Man,
through the once-broken bones in my hand.
I clench my fingers to force you out
but will you ever really leave me?
I wait, I lie quietly.
You knock knuckles high on my chest.
No answer there.
This body is a hollow husk.
You fill it with your cold silver,
your winking rain-coins
and coiled whips of wind.
You seep through the shutters.
I may drown this way, a little rain
in my nose, in my eyes.
Even now I do not rise.
It is late morning and I do not rise.