Wendy Brown-Baez

After the Storm

I was in a mood of wet
wool and white fog
horns, I was listening

for the whistle of the tea
kettle but heard only a spoon
clattering against a broken

clay cup. It was a
day like any other, cold
and dim. Better than the

exploding fire in my
veins, less bright than
a tugboat inching itself

along a hulking wall of
metal and foam. When I gaze
out the window I see forest,

endless and forbidding
where a path has ribboned
its way to hilltop, to sunrise.

When I gaze in my heart
the black beads of blood
have congealed, leaving no

gem or shine. And yet in some
memory there is an ark, a light
house, a translucent rainbow

arched over the broken
and submerged world, flood
waters reflect a satin sky, echoes

of doves wheeling away.

Sitting Out the Rain

Let us suppose, for example,
I am sitting out of the rain
in a warm place. And let us
suppose it is quiet but for

footsteps across a wooden floor,
the hum of the heating system,
an occasional voice. But there is
no child crying and no

bitter words spoken in distress.
Let us suppose I have come here
to find my mind waiting
at the end of a sentence, a line

of poetry that trawls out from my pen,
indifferent to me, simply
announcing itself as it must. And
let us suppose because of that

I can keep going, back to the
sludge of my heart paying
its debt for loving, always
wanting another way to be repaired.