i.

It is pouring, so the company retreats to the training shed.

A boy watches the lip of the roof shape a curtain of rain.

Imagines parting that curtain, stepping from this cold.

The rain is not a curtain. It is rain.

 

ii.

It is pouring, so the training shed retreats on itself.

Folds into something minute, the size of a fist.

A boy watches the shed watching the boy.

He would pick it up but it would leave him in rain.

 

iii.

A boy stands and waits for his training to be shed.

Wants it feathered off his head, like hair.

The night lands instead on his back, hooting.

Who knew memory was as incessant as rain?

 

iv.

A shed gathers its lip-full of night, drawing the curtains.

The night is cold and watches for company.

It shapes itself into a boy stepping through a curtain.

The rain is not rain. It is also a boy.

 

v.

It is pouring boys, so the company retreats.

They shed their fists. There was no training for this.

They wrap themselves in curtains and step through.

The rain comes as hair. Or it is hair that is like rain.

 

vi.

A boy is hooting in the night on his back.

The curtains retreat from his shape, watching.

What he has shed will remain cold, like his lips.

The minutes are not minutes. They come like rain.