The Restless Poet

The air gets heavy
before the first drop.
I listen for the change in pressure, not sound —
the way skin knows a storm before the sky does.

Your voice is the rain
before it hits the roof.
I step outside for it.
Leave the door wide open.

Let my hair get heavy
with something that hasn’t landed yet.

You talk like weather moving in —low, sideways,
green at the edges.
I don’t take cover.
I take you in.

Your presence
is the smell of cedar after.
I find it on my sleeves hours later.

In the folds of the couch.
In the cup you didn’t finish.
Proof you were here without announcing
you stayed.

I don’t need thunder to know the storm passed through.
It remains on everything I touch.

Inhabited.