Whatever Touches My Roof

It has been raining for two days.

Water trembles down the glass,

spills from the roof,

gathers on leaves

and bends the grass.

I have not stepped outside.

The world has washed itself clean.

For a little while,

something in me feels clean too.

Halfway across the world,

you are sleeping.

I imagine your breathing,

steady in the dark,

your quiet filling a room

the way rain fills mine.

I count the hours until your face

appears on a little screen,

your eyes finding mine

with the wonder of two people

still becoming known.

The rain brings back the monastery.

On wet days,

we disappeared into separate buildings.

I read in the library

while water drummed overhead.

Beyond the muddy paths,

you were somewhere in your kuti,

meditating, perhaps,

or lifting weights,

only a few buildings away.

I rarely saw you

except at meals.

Still, knowing you were there

changed the shape of the day.

Umbrellas. Mud.

Cold air.

Rain spilling from the roofs.

Some part of me believed

that whatever touched my roof

could touch yours.

Now there is half a world between us.

Morning reaches you

as my afternoon fades.

You sleep

while rain moves down the glass

and I wait for you to wake.

Love has never been good

at reading maps.

The rain makes me remember

being five.

Before one country became another.

Before familiar words became strange.

Before someone I loved

became a face

I could no longer quite remember.

I did not yet know

to be careful with hope.

The world was enormous then.

Anything could happen.

Years taught me otherwise.

People leave.

Promises change.

Beautiful things end.

Even the rain knows this.

A drop reaches the glass,

lingers,

and is gone.

The earth receives it

without asking it to stay.

And still,

the rain gives itself completely.

If you were here,

we might do very little.

Hot cocoa.

A movie.

Your hand finding mine

beneath a blanket.

Rain above us.

I would not ask the future

what it intends to do with us.

You have made me young again.

Not young enough

to believe that nothing ends.

Young enough

to love what does.

And this morning,

I find the girl I once was

standing at the window,

watching the trees

rise again after bending,

watching the wet world

catch what little light there is.

You sleep beneath another sky.

For a moment,

there are no continents,

no years between us,

no yesterday to carry,

no tomorrow to promise.

Only the rain.

And a world

I had almost forgotten

how to believe in.