the taste of a morning
I wake to the steady patter of summer rain. Too early, I begin telling myself. But from where within the insistence? Where within the affront in the lie? To refuse the precious gift of laying just half-risen in bed, letting cares dissolve in the curtains of rain. Now heaving, now sighing. I taste the droplets wetting the stone of our windowsill. Perhaps inadvertently reviving the rosemary and oregano long ignored in the windowsill plot. Or perhaps just ebbing my lot away in time. I, scuppering, all the while. Mesmerised by simply passing from one infinitesimal now-slice to the next. This is much the sweet silence drawn from a cigarette. Now the rain has stopped and bird calls begin piercing the blanket hushing the street. But there is not a soul to hush. Everywhere in beds they turn over, rubbing their itches involuntarily, and slumbering on in a race against the phone alarm drawing ever nearer. I, waiting mine.