Too sunny

Trying Not To Be Too Sunny

by Mary Harwell Sayler

The wet cement of elephant skin

pours along an African plain,

building bulk like

those thunderheads in the sky.

I wish it’d rain.

The afternoon turns

monotone

with nothing much to do but

laundry – sheets and

towels ready to mop a sheet

of rain that does not come.

Washing, washing everywhere,

but no pachyderms

pour from that cloud – now as

heavy-laden as a load of unwashed

clothes or a basket of unsent prayers.