The Rain

The rain in 1959 say is
Not the same as the rain in 2005
Which is something a lot of bad novelists forget.
In 1959 it’s raining and some kid has
To stay inside or go outside wearing one of those
Yellow raincoats and funny hats
That Dick of Dick and Jane had to wear
And this kid won’t do that.
No, he’ll watch “Superman”
And George Reeves is still alive
There on the black and white TV
And that 1959 rain is falling
On lilac bushes under which
He once buried a silver dollar
For a whole night and once saw a dead mouse
And the moon that comes out
After the rain when his mother is
In the basement actually ironing clothes
With a mangle and smoking a Lucky Strike
Is a 1959 moon but to get back to
The rain just then a rain was falling on Pusan
And Normandy beach quite different from
The rain for example falling
Today in a suburb here on the coffin
Of some poor kid killed in Iraq
And that kid knew in 1995 at ten
The 1995 rain and now he’s dead
And tomorrow it might rain.