Looking Up

The branches overarching, black, holding
Silence in the space between the leaves.
Exhuberent in the low notes of thunder,
I demand you open your heart to me,
But I will not answer me, except in pleas.
It is an empty sort of rain that falls on wet
Ground, making foolish puddles without
Purpose. Looking down on the steel sky
Reflected there—me there, too—I believe
Again in the richness of excess. I believe
Each time, again. I am Billie Holiday;
I am broken. But the rain falls anyway.