Stephenson Family Ties

To be drawn out of doors by the first sign
of rain on the window, to be happier drenched
than dry, to go out in weather
that others come in from, warrants a stare
from passing faces, and i know what it means:
there goes someone with serious problems.
Problems I have, and a nasty stammer to prove it.
But when I run into streets that are shiny,
my love of the downpour doesn’t mean
I’m courting sorrow, or getting sick on purpose.
Umbrella weather, though people who flee
seem not to know it, soothes wounds
by making them bigger:
if pain must come, it might as well be
dripping on bricks and blowing through trees
rather than staying in and turning paler.
None of this happens in calmer weather.
To be sobbing in sunlight, groaning on dry land
always leaves me feeling as if
I’m foreign, I’m freakish, I’m out of the loop
until a storm comes and I’m in it again
only deeper now, with a smile no news can ruin.
I throw up a curse and it comes back a blessing;
I look around and my love is pouring
all over the city—crude sighs, small tears
are larger and finer than they first appear
when they come rampaging down, as wind and as rain.

— Rachel Wetzsteon

image by Harvey Blessing