NOW YOU NEED ME  by Virginia Hamilton Adair

When the rains come

you remember

our old closeness

humping along

in the wet.

You grope the dark

where I hang

morosely

by my crooked neck.

You pull off my cover

shake me till my

ribs jiggle

and a moth flies out.

Your hand reaches under

my black skirt

and up one leg

thin as a cane

until I open wide

with a rusty squawk

hovering above you

like a dark and loving

raven, said the old

umbrella, her night

full of holes.