your dry field

i'm a thunder advancing
the edges of your field,
crawling in a scold,
rumbling toward that
squalid acre

where you pitched a
flag to stake a claim
with a tongue that
carries the poison
of asps

yours is a field turned to
scrub, bordered now by bramble;
no more dancing daisies, happy gilia:
all of it burned by
the transgressions of your lips

you summoned this heat
that has dried your
range and drained
the waters underfoot
and now

look at you
pouring vain tears
onto those
deep cracks hoping to
call back the flower

i offer no hope
bringing my torrent
from a gray brow;
these are not tears but
something to whet your ego

to make you thirst
again for my attentions
only to see it all
evaporate when i've
passed you by

that is the way of
the drought: when some expect
the deluge to be a cure when
a month of rain
is the only way back