washwords

Last night I watched you, literally, try to stop the rain with a small plastic bucket.

I hadn’t meant to wake you, tiptoeing through the shadows: moon, water, streetlight. I traced my finger against the edge of the bathroom window – it was too fogged up to see, just hear: water against black tar, my pink toenails against the tile.

Back in your room, I could hear it coming harder now, great gusts carrying leafy twigs, water, earth.

I had to see.

I went to the window and you heard the water, too; but didn’t hear the rhythmic drumming or the pattering poems, just the flooding basement. “Guess, I’ll start digging” you said, sliding on jeans and coat and rubber boots.

I could only watch, meekly ask if I could help, knowing you’d say no. I offered tea, warm blankets, to don boots and buckets with you, but you said no.

So instead I climbed back up the wooden staircase to the bedroom, blue draping your walls and windows and opened the curtains, lifted the window. It was 60 degrees, rain coming straight down and I watched you take that little bucket back and forth and back, shining the yellow light ahead of you then up the window at me.

I waved but didn’t break the plane of quiet, of blue. You didn’t either. I let the curtain go and turned out the bedside lamp, so when you came inside it would be warm instead.