Function of Water

By NATHANIEL PERRY
On rainy days the place seems smaller,
acres still ringed and shrouded by trees,
but the sky is closer, like something landing.
I know you’d like to ask me—please

can we go inside, it’s cold, I’m cold,
the baby’s cold—but you know I won’t
let you go inside yet. The boy is shrieking
as if the colors behind and in front
of his new eyes are all too much
to take in at once, too much joy
at once, I mean. But I called you out
here for this early rain. The boy
can see what he needs to. I need you here,
beside me, to see this place filled
by something that is not us, our every
acre ringed and shrouded and still.

 

Nathaniel Perry is the author of Nine Acres (APR/Copper Canyon, 2011), and his recent work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Upstreet, Orion, and elsewhere. He is the editor of the Hampden Sydney Poetry and lives in rural southside Virginia.

[Purchase your copy of Issue 02 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Function of Water

Related Posts

whale sculpture on white background

September 2025 Poetry Feature: Earth Water Fire Poems, a Conversation

LISA ASAGI
"We and the whales, / and everyone else, / sleep and wake in bodies / that have a bit of everything / that has ever lived. Forests, oceans, / horse shoe crabs, horses, / orange trees in countless of glasses of juice, / lichen that once grew / on the cliffsides of our ancestors, / deepseated rhizomes, and stars. // Even stars are made

Hitting a Wall and Making a Door: A Conversation between Phillis Levin and Diane Mehta

DIANE MEHTA and PHILLIS LEVIN
This conversation took place over the course of weeks—over daily phone calls and long emails, meals when they were in the same place, and a weekend in the Connecticut countryside. The poets share what they draw from each other’s work, and the work of others, exploring the pleasures of language, geometric movement, and formal constraint.

Anna Malihot and Olena Jenning's headshots

August 2025 Poetry Feature: Anna Malihon, translated by Olena Jennings

ANNA MALIHON
The girl with a bullet in her stomach / runs across the highway to the forest / runs without saying goodbye / through the news, the noble mold of lofty speeches / through history, geography, / curfew, a day, a century / She is so young that the wind carries / her over the long boulevard between bridges