Marge Piercy

Will the drought ever break?

A sandpaper sky with a few useless clouds skimming over. The air is hot broth. Tourists love this weather. Grass is brown cellophane, texture like kids used to get in Easter baskets. Robins, chickadees, sparrows can’t stay away from the sprinkler. Lettuce droops. The trees look blasted. The sun is a fire out of control, burning their leaves. I hear a rustling at night of dry leaves and imagine rain that never comes. I stir dust walking on my land. Even the zucchinis are tiny fingers that can’t swell or lengthen. Rose petals on the ground but no more roses on the bush. The air sucks scant water from my skin. Around every pond, a wide margin of mud but there is no mud, just scales like a lizard’s skin. Everything shrinks.

sudden sheet of rain
how wide we open