Leaking

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and huddling indoors while the windows shudder, hearing wind tear at roof tiles and falling and hitting the pavement with glass, leaves, stucco, and laundry forgotten on the line, and not knowing

 

then calm, raking branches off the street, and stomach churning on the long ride out of the city, sun-warmed skin, and diving from rocks and swimming whorls in the river and, later, waking to an infection that will linger for another two weeks, and not yet knowing

 

and finding a puddle on the floor winding back to the kitchen pipes, moisture swelling the cabinets, dust rotting off in clumps, and crying when, once again, the new sealant melted

 

and crying when I got the call, and packing things into a duffel bag, and waving goodbye from the bus, and reading in Rita’s book of poems [1] about water that she doesn’t know how to swim

 

and what drew her in was the not-knowing, and sore joints as the long summer closes, with leaves sealing drainage shut and rain pooling waist high, fields flooding and red berries floating to the surface

 

and reading that bones should be arranged feet-up or the dead will be caught upside down forever, reading that when it comes to obon, the first year is most important and knowing and not knowing it will happen before I arrive

 

and arriving and a rattling inhale and skin taught with fluids, otherwise quiet, a cold hand, reading the opinion that disasters create pressure for change, an outcry, a heap of four-pronged things that slow the decay of soil into the sea, a splintered umbrella, a breath, a silence, the weight of blankets left out to dry, and leaking feathers, and leaking pipes, and leaking water into the inner ear, and leaking and knowing and not knowing and not knowing

 

[1] Rita Wong, Undercurrent, 2015