At Night after the Storm
Chasing sleep, you hear it,
the sound of drizzle in the downspout—
the rhythm of rearrangement,
metallic melancholy eighth notes
before dawn when vestigial lightning
silent-breaks the blank.
You hear it in your darkness,
eyes open to the ceiling,
hands at rest on your ribs.
It shapes the hour, flushes into creekbeds
and new habitats: grit, twigs, leaves, and seeds—
the aftermath of cataclysm.
Displacement flows, just before the birds
begin to peck, to scold, to urge you
to listen to the story of daylight.