Summer Storm

You speak of love
and your words are wet and heavy.
Silver runnels slide over
shoulders, back, buttocks, thighs,
cleansing cobwebbed self-doubt
from places I'd forgot.

Fat and cool,
dropping like summer rain from a storm that
boils up over the mountains in the afternoon,
soaking skin before
I even think to hide.

I am drenched,
beyond hope and power,
hopelessly soaked,
though skin to bone,
and beyond,
to the center and I-know-not-what.

The day's plans ruined,
I can run inside,
where dry clothes and
protection from the elements await,
and forget the drops
that splash across my nose.
Or I can stand out here,
silent and alone
and let them run down my skin in
rivulets and rivers and streams,
world without end.

Amen.