Time was, the rain brought nasturtiums, like a lover,
but now is not August any more
and the rain comes empty-handed
which is fine by me.
READ SOME MORE
There are so many flowers already,
so many spoons and shoes and candlesticks
to be accounted for.
I make lists for company
of all the objects in the world
that bloom the way nasturtiums do
loudly, brazenly.
The rain doesn’t care so much for lists.
Tonight it calls by the house late
with something important to say.
Its words end in all double letters
that lean in, like italics,
close to each other
so nothing comes between.
Vona Groarke’s Selected Poems (Gallery Press ) won the 2017 Piggot Prize. She is currently a Cullman Fellow at New York Public Library. A new collection, Double Negative, is due.
