The Rainmaker

-For Burt Lancaster

He comes to drought-stricken towns; a saviour
dressed in rattlesnake shoes, riding on a pale
Pegasus. “There’s something in the air,” he
says. “Something in the air.”

He dismounts, and then stares; eyes bulging,
nostrils flared, a fringe trickles out from
under his black hat, and then a smile breaks,
like the rain he promises.

He showers the folks with watery tales, but his
motives, like his origins, aren’t so clear. There
is a solitude about him – an abandoned kite soars
across a barren sky.

At the core of this bravado is an insecurity, but
women seem to be giving him a go, people are
listening to this crock. Even old Harry was seen
slipping him a few bills.

And when he flees town, Pegasus flies. Behind
them angry men chase, but in vain: “This clown
has stolen the hearts of our maidens and eloped
with our hard-earned.”