Last night a storm rolled slowly in
the thunder muffled by the air
so heavy, like a mortar’s crack
or heavy rifle silenced with
a potato at its barrel end,
wrapped in layers of gauze;
it could only slowly make
its way along the pea-soup night
and felt that it was far away
instead of at our doorstep.
The rain was more like sour sky-sweat
that leaked from cloud-pores; it did not fall
but oozed out in the still air like
the world had run a marathon,
the moisture dripped along its brow
and heaving chest, coating hot and salty
the gasping, overheated ground.
10 AUG 2004
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