A downpour slips beneath the
lesser rain, colorfast and
anonymous. I hold the
freshest water in my cheeks,
as though to attract your
door to summer, let it swing
loose in its harness. My mood
won’t hold its decline after
dark, this is called affection.
Maybe a sister treads beneath
the canopy of your sleep. The
rainbow’s mark is faint as
waking, rails to clinch a
gradual rumination. Will
shallows rise to any air,
bumping repeatedly against
fields plowed and flooded
that reflect your flashing sails,
behind them a sheen they
don’t yet contradict.
Andy Stallings lives, teaches, and coaches cross country running at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. His first book of poems, To the Heart of the World, came out with Rescue Press in 2014, and other poems from Paradise can be found around the internet.