Rain

at last it rained.
the clouds spread their blue, blue eyelids.
too long we embraced the sun
the round yellow arms the dusty fingertips
for decades it seems the heat we 
believed was everything
imagining in this bottomless desert
god spoke through a dry mouth
whispered rasped through dead leaves.
then, a drop. 
a drop.
and our tongues extended alarmingly
like the hands of starving 
children and another
and another
and this, the story 
of how our eyes were filled how  
the fish learned to breathe without 
air so lovely their gills dancing
like Chinese fans. listen, it is true 
our third eye is made of water
a parting gift to us from the horseshoe 
crab, wise old boatman of the sea
back when we traded leg for fin
and wandered mad and foolish
across the earth troubling things
troubling ourselves but still
it is water, still 
that lubricates
the kiss it is water 
still in the heart's 
thumping drum
it is water that carries the salt 
of our tears to the sea
where it prays
where it reclines buoyantly  
where it sleeps like a calmed god.  
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