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wet
by Richard Hillman
a nation founded on rain
Lidija Simkute
walked for days in this fleshless rain
and he still has no idea what it’s like
to be wet
on those slow impossible days
when he feels everything from a distance
sun talc salt iron
blue tiles on bathroom floor
after daily flood of bodies
soaked shirt clings to his chest
he sighs, to be soaked through
on those ungraspable days
when each tiny molecule drips
into shapes that well
behind his eyes
he waits for waves
for the building of things
beyond himself
on those untouchable days
he wants to immerse
a part of himself
that has not been saturated
with words
to
be drenched in what
rain falls on sand
and his eyes inhabit
every impression
and ripple
from a silent distance
he traces the grain of the sand
back to night
the smoothness of bodies
into day
the approach of things
beneath the endless pattern of surf
there’s this boy, eight or nine
floating out past the last breaker
who doesn’t know what it’s like
to be wet – though he is space
treading warm in this drifting wash
where water is more than water
he can sense an ocean as dense
as grey as surly and uncompromising
as death itself
when the waves rise and the rain falls
and the land and the ocean are lost to sight
he knows he must return to the beach
to its relentless sand and wind
and careless distances
he does not need to know the wet
to recognise death
he does not need to know
that the blue-bottle stings
to be touched by one
still he comes ashore
with laughter in his eyes
he is standing here now
beneath the falling rain
with his mouth open
tasting
each unfiltered drop
with his tongue
copyright © Richard Hillman