Rain Poem
I’m listening to the rain smack itself into the house, and this isn’t even close
to how much I want your mouth on me tonight, how much I want
to be the cleanest water you will ever drink.
Summer is gone and I can feel the dark throat of winter starting to yawn across
the sky.
I think about myself inside this body, sitting in this bed I’ve never shared with
anyone,
while outside everything is dying and there’s a ladybug
on my ceiling who will never fall in love. My brother is sick. My daughter
is not here and if you die I’ll have to shoot myself so please
don’t make me leave my daughter.
There are so many daughters in the world and not
enough fathers. So many fathers and not
enough silk. Not enough robes. Not enough soft days where
nobody dies or talks about cancer, and so why
do I even bring it up? Sometimes I hate myself for being so sad,
but also I’m tired of these pretty pink glasses my therapist prescribed.
I’m tired of gluing all this glitter to my face, so tired
of not being naked all the time.
It’s all about perspective and no matter
how many stairs I climb I cannot see your face tonight,
so instead I’ll tell you about the Brillo pad I’ve tied to my wrist
so I can scrub away my skin cells as soon as they die
because I want to make sure you don’t ever have to touch anything less alive
than you.
Instead I’ll drink hot tea and build you a fort in my ribs, talk about all the
ordinary trees being weird in my throat. My body
forgot about darkness. My body is endless summer, knows that the sky
is so blue because you were born beneath it. My body is Easter
and she doesn’t know the word for goodbye. How much longer now
until you are inside? All week these words
have been so fucking dumb, dressing up like airplanes,
I break their wings with my teeth and still you’re alone in your apartment trying
not to drown.
This is me throwing you a lifeboat, pretending to be God, that this bright
velvet in my chest will somehow reach you like a morning in the middle of the
night.
I want to be your favorite penguin, every raincoat in the world.
| Sarah Certa |
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levelheaded: Rain Poem
The three lines that make up the first sentence of Sarah Certa’s “Rain Poem” end, respectively, with the following words: close, want, and drink. While the poem isn’t built on these words, whether coincidental or intentional, each of the three sheds light on key themes that recur throughout the piece.
Close: Our speaker is separated from her lover. She is separated from her daughter. Her brother is sick. Daughters are without fathers. A ladybug won’t find love…The desire for connection permeates these paraphrased lines. The speaker wants to be physically closer to her lover, and to achieve that, she imagines she will “build you a fort in my ribs.” Can’t get much closer than being physically inside someone, and that, as we discover a couple lines later, is exactly what the speaker wants (“How much longer now / until you are inside?”).
Want: The poem begins with the rain leading the speaker to reveal what she desires (“your mouth on me tonight”, “to be the cleanest water you ever drink”) and ends with the speaker stating “I want to be your favorite penguin, every raincoat in the world.” In the space between, Certa bounces from one thought to the next like rain drops spontaneously, sporadically hitting a rooftop. Each line expresses some unfulfilled desire (I don’t want to be “so sad” but I also don’t want to see the world through the rose-colored “glasses my therapist prescribed.”) There’s wanting to not have to glue “all this glitter to my face,” wanting to be naked, wanting to “see your face tonight,” wanting “to make sure you don’t ever have to touch anything less alive than you.”
Drink: Not that many poems are sexy, but this one is unmistakably so, and the biggest reason why is because its author doesn’t shy away from the carnal. The word drink starts us on a path where the the things of the world are often processed in relation to the human body. The simple act of drinking connects to the “the dark throat of winter starting to yawn across the sky,” and later, when she imagines drinking hot tea, there are “ordinary trees being weird in my throat.” Following this line come three sentences beginning “My body…” This is a poem of skin cells and ribs, teeth and faces and throats. It’s a poem about the physical feel of silk in contrast to the emotional feeling born of someone’s absence.
– The Editors
