Poem of the week: Against Loneliness

Time was, the rain brought nasturtiums, like a lover,

but now is not August any more

and the rain comes empty-handed

which is fine by me.

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There are so many flowers already,

so many spoons and shoes and candlesticks

to be accounted for.

I make lists for company

of all the objects in the world

that bloom the way nasturtiums do

loudly, brazenly.

The rain doesn’t care so much for lists.

Tonight it calls by the house late

with something important to say.

Its words end in all double letters

that lean in, like italics,

close to each other

so nothing comes between.

Vona Groarke’s Selected Poems (Gallery Press ) won the 2017 Piggot Prize. She is currently a Cullman Fellow at New York Public Library. A new collection, Double Negative, is due.