i still think of you when the world gets like this

Julia Klatt Singer

the air smells like rain and you ask me

how can it  hold anything.  Air, you say,

it’s just air.

I hold my breath, imagine I can stop

This, every beating

of my heart proves what a liar I am.

A car backfires and the world goes sudden & gray.

I tell you I am a believer

in so many things.  Goodness and mercy

that have no end.  This is my body.

This is my blood.  Thunder me hard, make rain

bleed the sky dry.  When the world gets like this

I still think of you; ditch and gravel, red-

winged blackbirds, my skirt hiked up, you, hitching for a ride.