Storm Watch

I have just enough
of instinct left to know

these signs of rain:
an insect too routine

for memory flits
sideways; a squirrel

reports his body’s
arc into the greasy breeze

between a low stone
wall and a shade tree.

The dish-pale sink of sky
sucks out a lottery

of robins worrying dirt
with pagan symmetry;

the drought-drunk grass
unfurls like local fame.

A thin electric tremble
coils the navel;

the bulk of us forget
each other’s names.