Hoping for Rain By Beverly Hennessy Summa

Lighting another cigarette,

she pretends she isn’t looking 

for metaphors of love

in the lightless faces of the men 

who press sweat-stained rolls of twenties 

& sometimes an unwanted Molly

into the cool heart of her palm. 

With some she asks permission

to take their photo.

With others she dares

to just take—

maybe a close-up, side profile

of a two-day stubble & white glister

of a single diamond earring. 

           Click

Or the forearm of a client

resting postcoital across the mattress,

red painted toes and lower half

of her leg lying in approximation.

Make this one black & white

& call it the hobbyist.

        Click

It’s only a job,

not the essence of her being, 

she would rationalize. 

Someday I’ll be an artist, 

she tells herself. 

A photographer of the uncanny,

maybe a self-taught 

Francesca Woodman.

She orders another gin & tonic.

Her brain turning like a storm cloud,

ready to rip open.

She’s hoping for rain.

She’s hoping to get home 

early tonight.

Her eyes drop to the fast-melting ice

at the bottom of her glass.

She snaps a photo

        Click

then turns the lens on herself, 

tilts her head & closes her eyes.  

Beverly Hennessy Summa’s poems have appeared in Rust + Moth, Chiron Review, the New York Quarterly, Buddhist Poetry Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Trailer Park Quarterly, Nerve Cowboy, Hobo Camp Review and elsewhere. She has a BA in English and is a Pushcart nominee. Beverly grew up in Yonkers, New York and New Hampshire and currently lives in South Salem, New York with her family.