Whethering

The rain is haunted; I had forgotten. My children are two hours abed And yet I rise Hearing behind the typing of the rain, Its abacus and digits, A voice calling me again, Softer, clearer. The kids lie buried under duvets, sound Asleep. It isn’t them I hear, it’s Something formless that fidgets Beyond the window’s benighted mirror, Where a negative develops, where reflection Holds up a glass of spirits. White noise Precipitates. Rain is a kind of recollection. Much has been shed, Hissing indignantly into the ground. It is the listening Belates, Haunted by these fingertaps and sighs Behind the beaded-curtain glistening, As though by choices that we didn’t make and never wanted, As though by the dead and misbegotten.