Out Driving in the First Hour

When it starts to rain in Southern California
the streets turn slick and shine, and
whatever song is playing is right
and feels like poetry.
Whoever is beside me becomes a sister,
or a brother, or a lover -
and they fit into the moment
like a child in her mother's arms - safe,
sweet, like the smell that mothers
have: warm, like freckles bouncing from sand
to skin in the sunshine, beside a river
that shines, slick like a street when it
starts to rain.
In the moments when the drops hit
the roof, and run down the glass
in streams, like little trails
forged in wilderness, like soft
rocks rolling down a mountainside,
like erosion, only quicker and cleaner,
like tears, the Holy Presence is in every
smile, in every breath, like
He must have been in the first.