The Question Of Rain
By Luther Hughes
after Jayson Smith
admit it,
being wet is the only option. you
crawl outside. throw yourself against the
drain—it’s better this way. pushing your
ethereal against the metal ribs of the curb’s curl and
finish. as a black boy,
all you have is your moist. your
gout-blood lip when
he slips, sinks beneath your skin. what terrifies you
isn’t the storm, but the looming light afterwards.
the pearled sky quiet as a seed.
just as rain, you were born to be there.
and then not. like
kinfolk. your voice a cloud fermented
inside the throat,
birthed in the shape of wanting.
it’s true,
luther, you thought you could walk on water—his
mouth sly, slick against your black corpse—
now, he says.
open. this is what happens when two things meet:
the flesh turns inward like a fist,
starved and thirsty. the earth
pining for a boy
quieted—you don’t know the meaning of emptiness.
how it can’t be
removed. how the body
succumbs to the single
tongue’s whip. truth is,
under all that mess, is more mess,
venerating the wash of what the body can handle.
how the body
wails. and the wails sings you still inside his flooded chest
‘xactly how you imagined—can
you hear it? can you hear
zion? can you hear the rain coming? and then not?
