The sky is like your flowers, the boy said
to his mother. To the south, the thunderheads
had turned orange as marigolds.
A little rain was falling but not enough
to matter, the drops warm as blood and gone
as soon as they hit a surface. He worked
a soccer ball in the driveway. The cicada

breathed their loud song, so common
no one noticed except those raised in big cities.
Some were afraid to ask, thinking
they wouldn’t like the answer. Others complained,
who could hear themselves think in such evenings?
The cicada amplified the story in their bodies:
dawn loved a man so much she asked

that he be made immortal, and so he never died,
becoming membrane and wings,
always singing. The rain was slow in falling
as if it didn’t want to let go of the cloud,
didn’t want to touch the earth
or the boy playing or the woman
watching sky become garden.