It's raining out through the white smoke,

out around the tar and resin foothills of the
Appalachias, late afternoon

tell me about yourself in these lost blue diners,
twenty-dollar tabs closed for a gesture:
half-smiles, half-light, half-beautiful

It's raining through the black smoke
through and through and beautiful
along the tar-lined beltways

and it takes the "nothing between us"
and chills double-barreled rye and daylight,
the eyes of pines reaching toward dusk

It's raining through Appalachia
and even the hard ashen lights of 
brick-clothed towns

studded along wayside and mountainside
are pitched in the tall darkness,
are extinguished in the nothing