I Eat Poetry

Rain at Night

Since you ask, lass, this is how I get to sleep:
I've imagined a string of numbered planets
which loop and dip out towards the husk
of our universe; pretended to be a wren
tucked in a leaf, safe from the peril of sleet;

or better still, I pictured myself as a buck
in a burrow, and stroked your bible head,
my young love, doused there in your slumber,
the way he'd shush his trembling kits. Did
I mention how much I wish I was a father?

But mostly I think of these two: the couple
recording rain at night, my champions.
He is on one knee, a microphone in hand
held up as an offering to chance and weather
while she leans over, fluttering her level.

They must, since we must, have the sound
of rain. Rain drifting, becoming silver
and manifest above the churchyard, spun down
on flower fields and rockpools, spattering panes
of the watchman's hut while a wet cat

shudders home. And my champions remain
solid in their task, unnamed, known only to me
until, sleepless without you, I whispered this,
as if you hear me across the noise of rain,
the darkened counties dropping off, the emptiness.