I shudder, wanting to know what all life wants. What the light knew as it traveled here inside the rain. In the mind of the clouds everything is water. Inside the water everything is black and white.

I cannot stop my eyes moving to the bright drop of water on your flesh. Outside, you hold still. Inside the cold drop I hear you shout and smile. I smear it across my lips. I take your forearm and use it like a breadknife to cut my head in half cleanly so you can scoop away and savor whatever you like. I feel eyes like knives on my wet lower lip.

“It stole a small amount of my warmth.” “Let me take care of it.” “No, it’s innocent.” “It’s taking off. Let me follow it.” “Tell me if it speaks like me.”

In the photograph the old man has water dripping from his black and white beard onto the face of a young woman. Her mascara has run down from her eyes to the corners of her mouth. The water is jubilant about the work it’s done. If you put your face close enough to the photograph you can hear wings beating inside the invisible rivulets of water abandoning the ship of the old man’s face, carrying microns of mascara down the smooth channels of the young woman’s skin.

Their eyes cut shapes cut from darkness to know the shape of dreams before they touched earth or flesh. Cut shapes cut from the darkness of water and flesh. It’s raining again in the empty city ready to be washed into the gray flat sea. I place your forearm against my lips. The stolen raindrop on my tongue begins to boil with fury.