Like the sound of rain

through leaves

at a summer window

the rustle of newspaper

as you start to fall

asleep in your chair

drooping forward

the pages crumpling

into a rattle

that startles you

awake to the watch

you must keep

on the world’s

dispatches

though the words

turn back into water

and the window again

fills up with rain

Susan Donnelly is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Capture the Flag, and three chapbooks.  Her poems have appeared in many journals, anthologies and textbooks, including New Yorker, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.  She lives, writes, and teaches poetry in Cambridge, Massachusetts.