RAIN WOMAN

If I went walking in the rain tonight,
every puddle would be left
with part of me in it,
and every wet leaf would
be joined green to my wet fingers;
I would drink rain water from
each curled rose I saw,
until I became a real rain woman,
misting down the roads
on toes of mud
with eyeholes of white lightning,
thunder-rattled limbs,
and purple clouds for blood.
I would crouch in shuddering bushes
and whistle at a lone-passing person,
try to win his soul to rain,
try to steal him for the wind,
try to make him love coldness and sighing
and wild weather and damp breasts.
Beware, people of the houses, people of light,
if I go out into darkness through this door,
I will become the rain as a bold rain woman;
I won’t be Freya anymore.

TONIGHT I AM

tonight I am a (three guesses)
a pinball machine,
a silver sliding-ball machine,
red and yellow beats my heart;
tonight I am a
thing of thuds and
golden glass windows and
in my eyes you see a hundred points;
tonight I am
(of all exciting things one most exciting
                          thing)
a pinball machine,
so loud,
so handsome,
brave and clashing
and clever –
tonight I ride a grainy-yellow beer wave,
I smell the battle smoke of frenzied 
                                                  cigarettes,
I have white teeth 
                         that chatter
written in blue numbers, and
my laugh is a 
                         chuckle of quarters that meet
                         in my stomach
(tonight I am so marvelous
a pinball machine play me)
strange – 
and wild
(and new and good)
to be a pinball machine,
who have always before been
a greening garden bench
sunning with the iris
in the spring.