Rain

Jaime Forsythe

To summon it, a pack of girls in blue

rub their palms together at dusk. Downfall

approaches on foot, the gathering sizzle of

June’s campfire, the spot where, by day, they

drifted, bellies teardrop-shaped cutouts

in green lake. Each face an oily sun beneath

the firehall’s dimmed pot lights, smell of

urinal pucks and chalk, chorus of snapping

fingers, clicks rising like steam. Leaf claps

into leaf, softly slapping in the fog. Thirsty

for the bliss of disappearance into a cluster

of notes in tune, as into forest’s cover, as

into the lake’s navel, forever skirting final

head count. Applause. A girl recognizes her own

metered leakage, prays to Mary, specifically she

who surfaced on the pharmacy’s weathered brick,

for camouflage. Hands strike the floor, hooves

cresting an epic plain, climactic until they conduct it

in reverse. Uniforms awash in headlights. Hiss on

pavement like butter touching a hot pan, mothers tap

cigarettes out truck windows while girls play gritty

tile, scales in contrary motion, typing from home

row, sound ebbing toward a beat soaked

in stillness. Flock of shadow puppets

suspended as the night turns onto its side.

Jaime FOrsythe

is the author of two collections of poetry, I Heard Something (Anvil Press, 2018) and Sympathy Loophole (Mansfield Press, 2012). Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain, Geist, This Magazine, and EVENT. She lives in Halifax/Kjipuktuk, Nova Scotia.