Diviner

Through hot red eyelids

I gauge my shrinking distance

from the sun.

Just like yesterday,

the sky heaves blindly down

to earth. All that exists

are wilted flags

on marking posts

and shiftless piles of dirt.

Bent over a shovel

I look down at my ditch

and its shiny metal vein.

Somewhere miles west,

one hundred homes

with one thousand faucets

will bloom like cactus flowers

from this pipe.

Here, with calloused hands,

I make rain.