Sudden Rainstorm
While we lie still
in the emptying bowl of light,
our bodies lengthwise to the poles
(like glimmering spoons)
Kite-winged the gull
rides wind
smudged black
as her own wing-tips,
the burnt sky spreading west and east
from her darkness-whitened breast—
—Cloud surfaces shift
unearthing footprints of wind
in the treadmill of ash-colored cotton
unbolting overhead.
When those
first kernels of cold ignite
our sunbruised skin
you kneel to gather
up oil, watch, keys
into your green plastic beachbag, roll
your greenedged mat, then ride
your heels
(like the white
gull hanging still
over the mountain as the sky expands).
Then the blackening sky
lifts and breaks northwest
letting down cold grey cones of rain
like pale rays of light into the ozone air,
and I strip from the line
our sheets
that all morning filled and filled,
shaping this coming storm
then await, like you, the now
doubly desired downpour
(the fluttering streaming of the white gull’s wings).