What the Weather Man Said
My doctor prescribed me an umbrella:
to be worn indoors, twice a day, after meals.
He said it would stop me falling too quickly,
help me land on uneven surfaces
and forget the smell of rain:
Lots of my patients wear umbrellas indoors,
you can trust me because I wear glasses.
That night, I drank the nectar of dreams,
delirious as smoking honey bees.
I woke up longing for bruised skies
leaded by clouds and fat with drizzle;
so I fed my umbrella to the wind,
watched its skeleton bulge as it swallowed,
leaving me to burlesque in puddles,
drink from pools, dance through tunnels,
until the night shivered stars
and the moon spat out its light.
Dan Stathers is from Kingsbridge in South Devon. After studying creative writing at the Open University, Dan was awarded the William Hunter Sharpe Memorial Scholarship by The University of Edinburgh (for poetry). He likes football and Border Terriers.