whenever it rains, the nation is flooded with poems titled RAIN, and every young writer thinks they’re baudelaire

in fact, you’re the sun of basho.

there were cobwebs in the corner of the wood-planked ceiling where a glowworm dangled magically in the moon-licked kitchen outside a pig roamed carelessly in the tall grass far off two horses feasted in the breeze blowing nonchalantly carried in from the dark bright ocean ruffling the ferns below the window pecan pie boasted egomaniacally, fresh out the oven and we sat down with chinese tea yes hmm she settled over the mountain and began to descend casting a glowing phantom like aura over the land as many some many millions kissed her goodnight. azaleas in a glass vase.

when I awoke, she was sleeping next to me, a faint trace of a smile, remembrance of drunken dashing clumsy sweet people. I got out of bed, put my jeans on, and walked to the kitchen. emma and danny were sipping coffee and the dogs were eating lazily out of their bowls.

“lookie here, this guy, you betcha, and there’s some coffee my man.”

“i think i lost a piece of my soul last night,” emma said.

“something you can ill afford,” i said, “oops. joke”

“we’ve got a few errands to run, but after, we can cast some lines in the lake, the dogs love it, what’s your plan?” danny asked.

“violet’s sleeping, and i might go dig the town for a bit.”

“yessir, yessir”

so i walked into the day. dominoes on the stoop. i walked towards downtown with my book, looking to dig, get a coffee, read in the shade of a big oak tree in a churchyard, love the sun. the cleanliness of the city still surprised me. lake champlain dazzled to the right. all the shops and restaurants were lined in a row, and the place was buzzing, (noticed many awkward tattoos.) i stopped into a small coffee shop called speeder & earl’s, ordered a café au lait, and then left to look for a place to lie down and read. it was late spring, and everything was bright. the air was not too hot, you know? i walked in the direction of the big, white church i had passed on the way down. there was an old hippie looking drifter sitting on the church steps, and i laid down in the yard to read. i was reading “the master and margarita” by mikhail bulgakov but what I really wanted was the story of that old drifter, and so i’d sneak peaks wondering where he’d came from, where he’d been, the old ghost of the green mountains with fire on the soles of his sullied boots. “what’s your story ol’ bard of the mountain? tell it quick.” i thought.

and then my phone rang. violet. wondering where i was. and me going back to the house because really there’s nothing more chemically mad for a man than a girl with flashes of enigmatic fire in the way she looks, the way she talks. the dream of a country house, flowers, cobwebs, a pig,

“i woke up to barrenness.”

“sorry. danny and emma will back shortly, and we’ll head out to the lake.”

when they returned, we all sauntered down to the lake. the dogs ran wild, fetching sticks, swimming, and sniffing the little, pink parts of other dogs. danny and mark were crushing cold beers, and I was too. we fished on the edge of the lake, off a narrow pier. we fished with mullet strips, but the fish weren’t biting in the afternoon sun. we didn’t care. emma and violet played with the dogs. mark talked about the space shuttle scheduled to land on mars that night.

“should we buy champagne on the way back, mark?” emma called.

in time, everyone had their fill, and we walked back empty handed. we’d nothing planned that night and sat around in the house. mark followed the mars landing on emma’s computer, and i was dreading the drive back to cambridge in the morning. violet looked anxious, too, and I felt some tension in her voice. but baby I’m going to here and now and heaven and back and tripped and how.