JOSH HUMPHREY

Ellington

Say it is raining. Say it is
not quite night time.
Say the man is leaning
into a doorway, but not
quite leaning. Say there
is a woman walking her
dog down the sidewalk
cracked and broken
so that the dog moves jaunty
like the beat of a drum.
And the rain is falling
into the woman’s hair,
drops weaving down
her face in the hint of
a pattern, the mathematics
of chance. Say the rain
is strong, but not quite,
the sound of it like a
muted instrument. And
for a moment then, it
comes clear, twisting into
language. The man in the
doorway understands
the way the pavement hugs
the woman’s quick steps and
her body lost already in
the arms of someone and
the way the rain wants
to touch everything. And
the man writes furiously
on a scrap of paper. Say
it is a napkin that held
a cocktail. Say he had
pressed it to his lips, to
his half-smile. Say it is like
the smile of a devil trying
to smile like an angel.
Say it is like happiness itself,
but not quite, not exactly.