If it rains when I’m thirsty, am I the orchard?

On the other side of glass it’s raining.
Glass is made of silicon. Rain is H₂O.
I think of two hydrogen atoms swaddling
the lone oxygen, how they cleave through
rain, ice, clouds. Or split into lone atoms,
singlet oxygens linking arms in air, or turning
bigamous with carbon: CO2, voila!

Is this downpour meant for me? The progeny
of quake and earth is great upheaval,
subduction plates, solid earth torn asunder.
Through hazy lens, I see nothing essential
or enduring. I obsess over maps, the enormous
ring of fire that surrounds us, a locus, a spit
of land, a catastrophe in slow-mo.

Memories dissolve in smog, mind maps shuffle
and tangle, brain cells lose ribosomes
and centrioles. Sucking my thumb at 8, in bed,
lights out, I thought, Where is God? What
I want to know now is: Exactly where am I?
I think about my childhood, my brother,
the playground, the uncle who . . .

. . . or that day with high school friends when
we skipped class, stood bundled tight, a yoked
circle in snow, unseen, fragrant joint passed
one to one. I wonder if the edge of the universe
will ever catch up with creation. An atom is endless
until split. All unions are ultimately annulled.

Outside, abundant fog obscures Port Townsend
to the east, erasing it. The round earth keeps
her secrets close to her crusty chest.

—from this month’s NaPoMo