Vellichor

Before rain. Clouds dozens of thoughts away gather
in the corner of your vision, surreptitious as Bigfoot,

as growing up. Every love is an act of defenestration,
like words eye-diving off the page into the casual reader’s

blink of sudden sonder. Hiraeth! when the bookstore closes
something reaches out from you for the story you haven’t held

but would have fit perfectly on your heart’s shelf. Then a dozen
thoughts pass and the petrichor rises from the earth to meet

the first drops of rain, sliding down invisible vines of physics
which determine where they’ll land, but not how you’ll smile.