Moments after the sky declares the rain absent,
__it begins falling roughly through the leaves. I miss you,
and worse, I want to say it the way another poet would.
__The creek is green-gold, the water moving
around stones and slabs of concrete. I walk loudly
__through it, feel it wrap around my ankles. Last night,
at a motel in Sallisaw, I watched a row of pale blue doors
__lean into sunset, like words in an aching sentence.
My shame is that I didn’t believe you, not fully. Beneath
__the rippling surface, there’s stillness, clear and cold,
where tiny glinting fish form patterns only to dissolve them.