Jack Morgan: Back at the Bottom.

After a day pregnant with misgivings. After feeling stupid about stupid things. After attempting to kill what's stupid with cider and whiskey and other friends. After poetry finally died. After falling asleep at the bookstore. After riding the bus with just one more kindly murderous friend. After walking to the liquor store in the rain for poisoned cupcakes and California steam. After stumbling through the rain again with homeless well-wishers. I got home and gave up.

I am pretending like yesterday was all on purpose. But this day's not looking much better.

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Tonight, Irish poets will be at Berkeley. 8:PM. I hope it's depressing.
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The screams between the lines. The moaning swallows.
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Mourning doves.
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It occurs to me that I have spent a great deal of my time, too much perhaps, in the rain. My mother used to say that I didn't have the sense to come in out of the rain. I don't think that I have ever owned an umbrella for longer than a couple minutes. I don't like umbrellas, and I don't have the sense to remember them. I am not romantic about the rain, but many romantic things have happened to me in it. My life is a cliché.

But it has rained on me on St. Charles Bridge. London Bridge gets longer in the rain. In the shadows of Gothic churches and cathedrals. I have looked up at it with an open mouth after being ridiculed and abandoned by someone I loved. I have wished to wear the halo round the street light in the rain. I have held people for warmth. I have cried in it, but no one could tell. Someone screamed at me, a confession of adoration in the rain. I have woken up in it, squinting in the darkness. I have squirmed with the long worms of Europe. I have swum in the ocean in the rain, but no one could tell. It's black in the ocean in the rain in the night. I have slipped over cobblestones. I have been shiny on the concrete with runny blood and numb knees. In Warsaw, I huddled with one of my greatest loves beneath the street, soaked with rainwater, knowing. I opened a window on the freeway to feel the drops like pins. An airbag hit my face in the rain and burned my coat off my arms. I've caught my breath in moist tunnels and smiled at strangers. I've prayed for warm bellies and careful whispers. I have stayed on subways all night and slept in train stations to avoid it. I have danced in it. I have laughed at it. And I've walked home.