eventually came to resent being called in
to areas of drought, asked to wave or
do the chicken dance in cornfields
and flower gardens for no pay, only
a potluck dinner at the local church.
He thought about charging money —
it didn’t seem right, though he
couldn’t say why. Weren’t there
plenty of other freaks who happily
profited from the calamities of
their birth — an extra head, say,
or lobster claws, or a beard
where no beard should be? Still,
he never got over the feeling that,
inconvenient though it was, and
as many things as he ruined —
clothes, books, a velvet couch —
it was a gift to have rain elbows,
and the gift was meant to be shared.
So he always got up (with a sigh),
he always answered the phone, and
he always went — time after time
after desperate, dry time.