At the Red Light

At the Red Light:

                Drops of Water

                On the Driver’s Side Window

All steeples are upside down

in the drops of rain on the window

and they multiply and they are many

bending shapes: and see how they make

balloon animals!  Can’t you

see a man clowning around with the limp

rubber wiener and how

he’s practiced holding it

randily, the bounce of his rhythm... it makes me

wonder if when he was first getting used

to thinking he might like to take up

entertaining a crowd with make believe

he stood before a reflecting glass

to catch the sass of his real wish and he’d add

act after act, gesture this,

subtle that, the rubber blown

to near popping, blown and popping

too full of him: until he learned the burst

of the bang was one of the challenges

he could push back on to the crowd, he could

control their own breath and the throb

of their heart, how he could have them

riveted to the twists in his hands

and rubs and squeaks and tipoffs and come

to what it all will be: the legs the torso

the ears and viola! it’s a long

necked giraffe or maybe a green alligator.

Or a pucker with that tied-off end

of a flower…and yes, all this right?

from one and one and one drop of rain falling

on the window, the tilted spire

in its curve, how maybe the only other

time it leaned that way was when

it was being erected, the steeple-

jack's asked his opinion and consulted the crane

to take the strain of the pullies instead of the men

yelling all their Saturday afternoon

expletives.  To think it could all come down

spire first but finally up it falls

into the heaven it was erected

to point to, nailed to the roof, all

tower housing and a tired set

of bells that have their go in betrothing 

the ears and spirit...but only after the fall

carnival and ox pulls and tent

events and extra fees in the back

for all the men and boys wink wink nod nod.

And judgments need to rest (tell me I'm wrong)

in the paw of a small boy sleeping

next to his deminishing-even-as-he-breathes

blue twisted balloon that makes me want

to wake him before it goes

flat as a sermon on a rainy morning, 

a thousand spires hard, still rising,

while the men yet to repent their sins drive on

before the light turns green.