She said “look at the black cloud back there”
as if that was a bad thing
as if the tornado still twisted her life
as if black was bad
and our president wasn’t our president
or not hers anyway–she said this and sighed
quite heavily
and continued
the silence she had broken a bit before.

I simply thought
of all the flowers that sing for that rain,
for the silver leaves
upturned
in expectancy and praise
of that black cloud,
wandering lonely,
so far removed from those
with which she would shower
with another tomorrow;

of the teenager who got an extra shift
at the gas station to pay
for flowers for his boyfriend
because so many mowers were revving up
for a monocultural matricide;

of the woman who misplaced 
her husband to the indiscriminate hydro plane
that carved her wooden life
with a slick, swift precision
only a blade of water could provide;

of the thirsty child
who could only dream
of such a storm
a harbinger in the second year
of his Hebrew dessert of a life,
with nightmares of an eternal Egypt
clouding his mind;

of all the songs of all the possibilities of all the universalities
held in that cloud–
waiting to be spilled
before us,
on top of us–

but so close to being
blown away,
out of our lives
and suffered by another