Sign of a Storm

Sign of a Storm

The flies are biting.

My grandmother always called that

sign of a storm.

In another town, reason yields her

lifeblood, torn in the mandibles
of locust men.

Pushed, fretted by the exhaust of south wind,

abandoned by north, mad forms

sweat and twist in a dance

for rain but only the dry thunder

of promises never meant to be kept

rumbles through the dark.

The golden cup is filled

ever more full, overflowing

while the deepest well runs dry.

I sit and wish for a charm

more potent than this clumsy

necromancy, a charm

for the living rain, lightning, change

banked in clouds’ vault,

no key in my hand while

on my cheek black air blusters and

rubs its stale breath,

quaking hot as a rat’s belly.

In the distance only a hermit darkness

pinches at the eye, packed inside a shell of night

from whose void the inmate has long fled.

Later the dog wakes me, her claws

furrowing the door, afraid

afraid to the core

of her simple soul

as the far away

thunder nears.

July 2011

Posted for  Poetics  at dVerse Poets Pub

Sheila Moore is hosting today, and her prompt is to write on the subject of water.