You're not getting any younger

says the rain as it swings open my front door,
waking me from my oversleep, proceeding
to pull fresh jeans onto my hips, feeding me
something substantial like rolled oats
or dried desire, burping me after breakfast. I spit up
only the mouthfuls I don’t strictly need.

This last respite, I was not totally unalive,
I think. All those empty hours, a vague
notion of self continued to strive
underneath my sunstarved skin.

The commanding wet guides me
out the door, pushing me in a stroller
through summer steam. Who am I

to require so much of the atmosphere?
Some temperamental blossom, sulking
hypocritically out of the sun. Unshy only
under cloud cover. Rising only when
the rainbeat bangs like a drill sergeant,
or a mother, upon the inside of my skull
get up, get out, there’s no reason to house
a flower who’s not willing and ready to bloom!

What a matchmaker I’ve made of the world
as if the sky cares about me. As if my life
were a movie where the clouds clear away
when true love shines and stay gone even,
in the second act, when the bills pile up,
the baby won't latch, and the husband takes
the dog, and almost all the silver, with him.