crazy rain

"dem's the devil's rain,"
Dover mused to
the musty porch
and the swelling mud
as the lightning
sputtered
through each pelt
of wind-crazed rain

the sky in green fury
where the midnight moon
should have risen
hours ago

the rain like a ghost-sheet
hard and diagonal
to beat and patter
aluminum siding,
car windows,
flooded gutters

farm cat tabby
with a nervous tail
sitting firey-eyed
and pawing the porch-planks
suspicious

the smell of dust rising
and the thick hot sky
and the cold angry rain
in fury and heavy drops
like millions of pebbles
cast down from heaven,
or the locusts
that only Moses would understand

raindrops stinging
my bare arm skin
and tugging my hair down
past my shoulders
until i pass the threshold
of the screen door
in it's clap and snap behind me
barreling towards only
mother
and the fleecy blanket
that fluffs and warms
while some storm
flexes and moans
beyond.