On the fourth day in a row of rain,
a canary scrambles on the damp soil
searching for the nest it fell from during a storm.

A child hides in the corner of a red brick school,
umbrella swaying in the whistling wind,
wondering if his mother’s still passed out
from the Jack Daniels bottle she finished off last night.
A dried maple leaf floats down the mud-filled street stream
into a dark sewage hole.

On the fourth day in a row of rain,
a cloud dangles low in the fog that’s stretched along the ground,
hovering over the abandoned neighborhood
that once paraded with children.