there was a hole in the yard
that dad sometimes sat in
when it rained
hoping that the senseless accumulation
would raise his body
with the tide of the river

though it never did

and he’d climb the same aluminum ladder
his dad did
and do what the rain was incapable of

he was quieter on those nights
sometimes studying the absence from the window
after his failure
while mom scraped uneaten leftovers
into a trash can that grew with our belts

after our sister passed
he filled the hole
with objects he’d bought from garage sales over the years

a snow globe that once predicted a winning horse
a stained glass car battery used as a defibrillator at a church no one worshiped at
an AM radio made from downed power lines
a sack of marbles with varnished flies
a jar of sand with a piece of yellowing tape that read normandy

were amongst the things he awarded
to the irregularity eating our lawn
maybe hoping their presence
would unburden the clouds
and he’d finally take the ladder to the town dump
or lend it to our neighbor
who didn’t move much from
his own broken jacuzzi

it never did rain again after all that
and when we called from time to time
he’d tell us it still hadn’t

and we didn’t go back much
so maybe it didn’t

or maybe it had been raining for years