Fucking in the Rain

Tin roofs claw the rain’s throat and choke out a scream, 

not a patter, not a drip, but a jagged metal wail 

ripping shacks into shreds of sound, 

gutters gurgling like slit veins, 

the storm’s piss hammering down 

till the zinc quivers like a junkie’s spine. 

Hail explodes, a thousand glass skulls 

smashing against the roofs, 

and thunder —fuck, thunder!— 

it’s a god with a broken jaw 

slurring lightning across the sky’s black bruise. 

Shacks jammed like teeth in a rotting mouth, 

the dwellers smell the electric rot 

and turn feral 

they don’t fuck, they collide, 

bones grinding, 

screams bursting like boils, 

swallowed by the tin’s rabid clanging, 

sucked into the storm’s roaring gut. 

No one hears, no one cares 

the walls are too thin, the noise too thick, 

and they claw freedom from the racket, 

a savage Eucharist of sweat and howl, 

their bodies a blasphemy 

against the damp, cramped cage of it all. 

The roofs don’t flinch, 

the hail keeps its cold, blind rage, 

lightning forks a map of veins 

over the orgy below

it’s not rain, it’s a war, 

and they’re the victors, 

screaming hymns 

that shred the ordinary 

into ribbons of wet,

useless flesh.