The Anger of a Slapped Sky

Who can say exactly what we’ve done to bring down four inches of July sky in the last two hours of this bread-mold morning, or if it’s anything more than our inherent Narcissus, recumbent and gaze-fixed on a swirl of easy-open plastic bags and Freon-cooled oxygen. We didn’t really know, or did we? I remain an optimist, and leg-it to the Piggly whenever lettuce is remembered — hoping small personal acts are not too little-late, even as the clang of drops on drops pulls my gaze out the sun-room window. Here in Georgia, back-sliders face a special hell — one that boils souls of even church-forged steel. In penance, I walk everywhere; feet echoing residents of each neighborhood abode. Recycling even my exhalations, I hold July thermostat at sweaty 80, and repent indiscretions of omission and commission, in the hope these contritions lure only sufficient rain to heal the dry throats of our streams.

Gary D. Grossman
The Prose Poem, v9, April 2024