Tin Rain

When the desert

first bloomed like a rose

and seagulls insect sated

became sainted

in the first

of his small rooms

with three spiders and a cot

on wheels

a small strip of utah sky

like a tiny television show

against clouds passing

Then that pink dorm room

with its parade of shadow lovers

some now dead

and its paintings its laundry line

of old tee shirts and grey socks

just about dry

Now in the city of harbours

in this final tiny room

above the domain of the lost

and somewhere beneath

a shrapnel of love like

tin rain across

my narrow train of thought

going somewhere

on these electric rails

one cyclopean eye catapults

through odyssean night.

Timothy Shay for MS -2012