Somewhere it rains Somewhere you go out In the first shreds of rain Wreathed in ice-cream breath Not here Here you stay in Until After the lash After the capsize threat After the rimfire cadence snare After The ground and branches ricochet In that frenetic St Vitas dance Of tremolo ingrained In the timpanic surface Shout, hail The rivers coalesce Become trees Again Everyone steps outside In the bruise-belly afterglow In the broken, fever-pale wax Solemnly righting bins and barrows As if these were the remains Of reliquary saints, or fallen cricketers Resurrected to defend the crease Of warfare green limned in wounds Of white-stained efflorescence
