I stretch my legs in my iron bed
under the roof.
I place a wet cloth over my nose to keep
from breathing dust
and wipe the grime tracings from around my mouth,
and shiver, thinking of Ma.
I am kept company by the sound of my heart
drumming.
Restless,
I tangle in the dusty sheets,
sending the sand flying,
cursing the grit against my skin,
between my teeth,
under my lids,
swearing I’ll leave this forsaken place.
I hear the first drops.
Like the tapping of a stranger
at the door of a dream,
the rain changes everything.
It strokes the roof,
streaking the dusty tin,
ponging,
spilling from gutters,
gushing through gullies,
soaking into the thirsty earth outside.
Monday morning dawns,
cloaked in mist.
I button into my dress, slip on my sweater,
and push my way off the porch,
sticking my face into the fog,
into the moist skin of the fog.
The sound of dripping surrounds me as I
walk to town.
Soaked to my underwear,
I can’t bear to go
through the schoolhouse door,
I want only to stand in the rain.
Monday afternoon,
Joe De La Flor brushes mud from his horse,
Mr. Kincannon hires my father
to pull his Olds out of the muck on Route 64.
And later,
when the clouds lift,
the farmers, surveying their fields,
the frail stalks revive,
everyone, everything, grateful for this moment,
free of the
weight of dust.
January 1935