I dropped my daughters and friends at the Evergreen State Fair yesterday afternoon for a few hours at the Carnival before it closed. Wouldn't you know, as we drove into the foothills of Monroe, rain was falling. It didn't let up either, and after two hours my drowned rats called me to be picked up.

Meanwhile, I've been working on my September send-out (the goal is to submit a packet of poetry somewhere every day for a month) and trying to decide what poems from the last year are worthy of being revised. Here's one that might be, but I think this version is raw enough to self publish on the blog, and won't too much resemble the final.

The rain that isn't already lost
is quickly losing its way. The leaves
mutter directions muddled
as wet maps. Up becomes down,
down, up. Right and left
are no hands you can count on.
The rain falls sideways.
Umbrellas point away from home.
What did rain ever know?
Wasn't it lost as soon as it took on
a body? Weren't we,
coagulating out of ether,
willing ourselves here, pell mell,
yowling like cats, our necks
scrunched against rain's cold hands?