looking out the window from the 21st floor – Jessica Anne Robinson

from here, you can see the rain stop.

a sharp line where my mother still waters the roses,

or what’s left of them, the one green side of the dying pine

and the hanging basket on the porch—though she

always waters that by hand. the dark thin clouds

move like pencil scrawl, the sky wet and smudging the words.

too loud to crack the window most days:

these are silt skies, like clay, like skin, like rumble,

like the last colour on the brush. these clouds

are written by my grandfather:

the long slant of letters with words stretched out,

spread across the page. or rather, my grandmother posing

as him: who breathlessly wrote the birthday cards

and signed his name.

Jessica Anne Robinson is a Toronto writer. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Diagram, SAND Journal, and The Anti-Languorous Project, among others. Twitter: @hey_jeska.