it's raining over there

the monsoon season is ending and the river is drying up, its stillness bringing mosquitoes that sting through my clothes, leaving my legs and arms pocked with angry bites. the mornings are cool and dark again, and i can see the greenness leaving the desert til next summer. i pull the death card, reversed: a period of transition is coming to an end. next to it, the three of cups suggests joyous gathering, supportive community. and the hermit, reversed, reminds me of how much reflection these transitions still require. the cops come to the neighbor’s house on the weekend. the neighbor who always brings over food, always gossips over the fence as she smokes her cigarettes and waters her flowers, is beside herself with emotion. i imagine it is grief, as i watch her family try to restrain her flailing arms and pacing frenzy. sometimes it is raining and i am grateful for a time in which i am not the storm, in which i am not in the storm, but only a body marked by itchy scabbed skin, watching the weather from a distance in this season of loss.