Names Above Houses

A Plan to Control the Weather

67 A Plan to Control the Weather Now, sleepwalking, Fidelito senses sea-speech in rain. He slips into his catastrophe clothing—a plastic twenty-five-cent whistle between his lips, the heavy night-shirt he wears. The call of fat drops, the thrum of water on the roof summons dreams. Eyes thick with sleep, he watches plumes of storm gather, a large bird with arms that pulls feathers of atmosphere into its body. The moon’s loud face exploding behind the cumulonimbus, the earth’s tongue raked by tail feathers of this gray hawk, the surfaces of bodies of water—all come to this moment: in his baggy shirt, life vest, and whistle-in-the-mouth, Fidelito ascends the crumbling trellis outside his house. Sleepy, on his roof, he hears the tragedy in storms. He flails his arms wildly. ...