I’ll never forget a story
my mother told me when I was little
about a time it was sunny in the front yard
and raining in the back
She and her sister ran back and forth
between rain and sun
trying to figure out how it worked;
how two complete opposites
managed to coexist and create a magic
What they didn’t know was that
the sun had been perfectly content just being,
radiating light just as it always had
until the tarnished clouds marched in,
pushing forward over the top of the house
into the weakened ranks of the front yard
their darkness like smoke, choking out the light,
the rain veraciously
washing every remnant of warmth
down the sewer grate
at the end of the road
the same sewer grate
that was once hidden in the shadows
cast by the light of the sun