This time I watched.

I am the type to pride myself
with a body painted in rain--
A water-colored paper towel--
leave out the soap and
clean my skin with the basking
of the worms-- the thin sausage fingers
on tympani asphalt.
Drum on my head like a lake.

Last night I just watched-- 
I'm not the kind of person to 
look at things from a windowsill--
I like to hold the perspiration of
a storm in my fingers
I like to learn to breath water
I like to make the streets
into Amazons-- take a trip
in my soaked canvas shoes to 
the banks of the Mississippi
the taste like turtle soup--
fill up my canteen there
with broth for the road
and walk to a street corner
so I can feel like I exist
on an island somewhere
in the Caribbean where
there's only Iguanas and
great papayas the size of 
Boston terriers.

This time I watched.
I did not leave my wooden
desk chair.
This time I watched another girl.

She had brown hair and
she tied it up in a braid 
like a whip to shape
her veins into lightning.

I wanted to tell her
she moved like a body painted in rain--
a water color paper towel.
Instead I watched her cross 
a street in the rain like a movie
like a goodbye or
a goodnight-- and she took
the shore of another island
in a raft drawn by hoodie strings.

This time I watched.
This time I watched.