It rains like an unclogged drain.
No longer bound by matted hair
and globs of conditioner, it revels
in its trajectory toward the sea.
It rains like tears in free fall, one
of those ugly cries that contort the
face. It rains like the fiddle in The
Devil Went Down to Georgia, when
Johnny shows the devil how it’s done.
It rains like the shameless shake of a
Saint Bernard after a bath, like splats
of paint carelessly flung on a blank
canvas. It rains like a garden hose
in the hands of a toddler, each step
closer awarded with a shot up the
nose. It rains like a pep rally during
a homecoming football game, feet
stomping, drums thumping, staccato
cheers erupting from the fans. It rains
like God’s wrath during the days of
Noah, and you start counting off the
animals in pairs of two. It rains like
memories.
Flash Flood Warning
Arvilla Fee has been married for 20 years and has five children. She teaches English Composition for Clark State College and is the poetry editor for the San Antonio Review. She has been published in numerous presses including Poetry Quarterly, Inwood Indiana, 50 Haikus, Contemporary Haibun Online, Drifting Sands Haibun, Bright Flash Literary Review, Stone Poetry Quarterly, Teach/Write, Acorn, Last Leaves Magazine & others. She also won the Rebecca Lard award for best poem in the Spring 2020 issue of Poetry Quarterly. What Arvilla loves most about writing is the ability to make people feel something. For Arvilla, poetry is never about rising to the heights of literary genius but about being in the trenches with ordinary people who will say, “She gets me.”