That night, I ran a bath. I told my mother
I wanted to be alone.
But she sat on the toilet and read to me
about a woman who waited in an abandoned
orchard for god to tell her why we feel
so much for someone we will lose
so quickly. And an apple fell into the grass
like a rock dropped into a lake,
and I said, It’s over.
But she went on reading
about what is sweet, what is hard
for us to grasp. And I was a child
crying in the bath,
while the woman in the book held
the apple and understood something.
In Wisconsin, I once saw the sun strike the rain
in our overgrown garden, heavy drops blazing
down like a spray of magma while I stood
propping the screen door with one arm, more empty
boxes waiting to be packed behind me,
looking out at the impossible fire
inside the rain.