Black Rain

Photograph by Reka Jellema. Copyright July 2015.

Black Rain

I saw a robin today,
soaked, all black, even
its breast
caught in a downpour
of black rain.

A bird unmoved
by the squall
of electric guitar crashing
from the open window
of a muscle car.

My mind, that cheap
crackling speaker, noticed
what the bird ignored:

A wake
of white static
dissolving into wakefulness.

A man in an icebox
drinking coffee
black
from a Styrofoam cup.

A yellow lab frozen
to the sidewalk.

A black bird
inked on the guns of the girl
with her psyche
in a knot.

Hot blood pooled
on the pavement
losing its red
in a pool of white
lamplight

Where did you go
when my wallet closed
and I heard
the flap and slosh
of my heart defect?

Why didn't we rise
above the drone and hum
and sing along
with robins?

Or tune in, my lost friend,
when robins became
silhouettes and the city
scraped dogs
off the street?

It was then my mind
pulled its drawstrings
- closed in upon itself -
while clocks tick despair, and

You reached
for a feather,
for flight, for the grip
of talons on a wire,
for second sight

While the robin,
blinded by black rain
stared away

By Reka Jellema and Tzod Earf
Copyright July 2015