pouring down justwrite

Pouring down the drain like discarded water from last night at two a.m. when I was dreaming about trains whose steam becomes large dogs and there was a tunnel and then I was awake, thirsty like an afternoon in church not talking. We'd always nap afterward, like prayer was so exhausting and the joints in our fingers ached from our hands clasping each other and patting the shoulders of our neighbors. Peace be with you. We said this, our tongues dry, but I've never felt closer to God than on afternoons we skipped church, the Sunday when four-year-old Elizabeth and I ate peanut butter sandwiches in the clover field next to the airport. The airplanes would come in just above us, the air around us shaking, Elizabeth curling up into the ground, her cheek pressed against grass, one eye gazing up from the space in front of her elbow, watching the sky. Summers feel like prayer, when you and I sit together beneath the slow-swinging grape vines, talking about birch trees and waiting for the rain as if it is a sure thing. The day I came back to school, half the sky was grey, down to the horizon where the mountains were throwing shadows that looked like home. I grew up on a mountain, the air clear and thin as lace. Now I sleep in a valley and try to convince myself I'm still higher than the ocean, that the earth coming up on all sides isn't trying to swallow anything but just wants to stretch, to reach up as far as possible and never fall back down. Peace be with you. My throat is so dry only God can hear me.