Late in the Evening
The rapid tap of rain
is hands on skin,
ground hard
from the day’s dry tread
made loose by this
roof-tap down-piss.
Lost amidst slap-dash
dots and splashes,
nothing to be seen
but still a sense
of something relayed
in the rhythm,
like code passed
between posts,
between a tree falling
and an ear waiting,
an old know,
that we are never alone.
Charles G Lauder Jr is from Texas and has lived in south Leicestershire since 2000. His poems have appeared internationally, and his pamphlet Bleeds was published in 2012. He is the Assistant Editor for The Interpreter’s House.