The ocean has turned pink with Pepto Bismol so we make an occasion out of rain. 

Isaiah pushes me outside and spins, arms bent to welcome the storm. It catches 

all over him- finger creases and in smile lines. All I can think is we need cover 

until he opens his mouth to the sky, swallows and I 

can do nothing but succumb. 

 

I fall to the brink of his waterless pool and watch it fill with alien rain. It’s not as strange

as it should be. It’s a great rumbling rosy-glassed storm. It’s Isaiah 

next to me, drops collecting in his webbed fingers until there’s enough to splash at me. 

It doesn’t make a difference. We’re both covered in it. His grin is victory enough. 

 

We end up on our backs, sneakers kicking the lip of his pool. The ground is hard and grainy 

and smells like chlorine dried out in sandy sun. Isaiah stares into the sky and I stare 

at him. I think even the rain, rare enough, should want to be more

than itself as long as Isaiah is under it. His throat bobs 

with every swallow, nose cuts the line between sand and sky & he is

 

turning to me. Don’t stare. 

Or, rather: what are you looking at me for? When medicine falls from the sky, you drink.

I lose my tongue in the back of my mouth so he guides my chin to where it’s supposed to go. 

Up. You look sick, and I know I do. I’ve had too much

 

or too little, my rolling stomach gloats bad influence

cannot excuse want, but want opens me like rain

forcing back eyelids until they run with pink. Isaiah’s hand hooks on my jaw 

and I spill out.

 

It’s foolish to hold out something careful without expecting it to break. 

Isaiah is not foolish. He takes without expectation,

and when he smiles his gums are ripe with medicine. 

Tomorrow, he’ll remind me how I laid on my back beside him,

how I caught rain in my mouth and meant it.