I have stood in the rain without you,
and I have stood in the rain thinking of you.
I watched you lift your face to a gray sky,
the way others lift their faces to God,
your black eyes wide and receiving,
your hair a dark wave breaking slowly
over your shoulders.
I think I was jealous of the clouds.

I could not give you the green that follows the storm,
I could not split the sky open and pour myself through it,
I could not arrive on your skin the way water does.

I loved you the only way the living can,
loudly, badly,
with my whole unweathered self,
my hands that could not become rain,
my voice that could not become thunder.

I still go outside when it starts.
I let it soak through the shirt, to the chest.
I look for something you left in it,
some small instruction,
some translation of your joy,
because you were joyful in it,
and I am only wet.