Rain on Cardboard Boxes

It hits you

Like rain on cardboard boxes

The realization

That you’re out of time

And that time was something

You always had less of

Than you thought you did

A woman walks down the street

And you offer to sing her a song

But to her, a song is a slap across the face

A chaser to a subway ride

Nothing to write home about

She probably thinks you smell

And you do smell

--Like rain

Like whatever rain smells like

When it lands

On something

Your smell is all you have

At the moment

And a guitar you can’t play

Nobody ever taught

The homeless guy

How to play guitar

But you did find one once

Which was a cruel sort of universal joke

It was in a trash can

Waiting for somebody

Who couldn’t use it

You carry it around

Thinking maybe one day

You’ll wake up

And know how to play

Twice before you go to sleep

You wish for a pillow

And tell god that she can have the guitar

If she gives you a pillow

With real feathers in it

Like your grandmother had

You ask god for other things too

But tell her ‘No rush’

Because where are you going?

And why do you gotta hurry

To get there?

In the park there’s a place

Where nobody looks

For anybody

And you crash there sometimes

When it’s warm

And it hasn’t been raining

When it does rain

You go to the overpass

Near Maple and Rose Avenue

And watch it come down

On either side of you

Sometimes cars stop

And tell you to get in

But you never do

Because kindness

Is always attached to something

Sometimes it’s attached

To more kindness

But sometimes it’s just bait

On the end of a line

One car stops

And a woman hands you

An umbrella

And tells you to get a job

But you don’t care

Just as long as you have

The umbrella

A lot of people have time to be kind

But no time to be useful

You’d rather have useful

Than somebody

Offering a prayer

Or some hope

Hope doesn’t hold up too well

In the rain

You always find it funny

Being under

Something called

An overpass

Waiting for the rain to pass

So you can fall asleep

It’s not that you can’t fall asleep

While it rains

It’s just that you’d rather

Stay up and watch it

Next to you is a cardboard box

That holds all you really care about

A bag of potato chips

A bottle of Mountain Dew

Two photographs

And a football jersey

You sit in the middle of the overpass

Far from either side of it

With one hand on that cardboard box

Scared that if you’re not touching it

It’ll just disappear it on you

Little drops of rain

Sneak past the concrete above you

And land on the box

No matter where you put it

You don’t mind

What lands on you

But you like

Keeping the box dry

A truck goes by

Then two more cars

And then it’s nothing

For an hour or two

But the rain goes on

And probably will

Straight up through morning

Sleeping in the daylight is tricky

But you’ll find a way to do it

So you can wait out the rain

And watch it die down

You love the rain

But you love the moment it stops

Even more

That brief moment

When everything settles

Under the only sort of kindness

That comes with nothing holding onto it

Because it’s coming right from god

That moment

When the world and you

Are washed

By the same water

And everything you see

Smells just

Like rain