by Aaron R. Allen
It has rained constant and soft for three days now. The ground has filled with water, the roads are wet and my good leather shoes slush and squish with mud as I walk slowly home. On the concrete there are worms. They move, scattered and slow, some diagonal, others without any order. I stop to watch one as it makes slow, desperate circles. Then the pigeons come squat and slick and wet beaked. They gorge themselves on the aimless worms and fly over trees towards nests to satiate their children. I walk, quick diagonal across the street towards my home, and inside my thoughts move with the worms and the rain— constant, aimless circles. I learned just yesterday that worms rise so as not to drown. They flee the saturation of the ground. They can't survive the constancy of rain. Pick me up God. Fly me home. Feed me to your children. Only then can we be satiated.
Aaron Robert Allen is not a psuedonym. Recently graduated with a BA in English, Allen plans to return to BYU this fall as a grad student in poetry. Allen is a cast member and writer for Divine Comedy, BYU's premiere writing group, and a founding member of Cougar Raps (C-Raps).