The rain creates its own ballet

starting with a lone figure on a bridge

holding an umbrella in the fog

splashing teardrops with his feet,

doing jetes over the larger puddles,

until the wind inverts his shade,

plies turning to pirouettes,

approaches cascading to the portal

and the head of the street,

dancing to a cityscape beyond.

 

At the last turn they meet cute,

their outward canopies entangling

rib to rib, shadow to shadow,

a plastic bag covering hair and

half her face, soggy groceries

nursed to her chest, an oversized

purse dangling her wrist, pulling

her down, falling, wishing for

something, someone, anything

to stop the descent, the crash.

 

He catches her in perfect repose,

umbrellas twirling the pavement,

as he slowly lifts her to him just a

breath and heartbeat away,

their hands touching, a thousand

raindrops pulsing on and in them.

 

Her parasol dances away from her

over the edge into the swirl below,

his caught before flight is vigorously

shaken to form.  He stuffs fallen

apples and pears into the pockets

of his rain jacket.  She discreetly

stashes a box of tampons into

her coat’s hidden lining. The umbrella

is their only shelter as she holds

it over them while he carries her

in his arms to the nearest cover,

a bodega with a green awning.

 

At the corner of the drizzling mist

a mother swaddles her boy

in the hems of her rain dress.

Unprotected singles cover

their heads with open hardcovers

or purchases clenched in plastic bags.

Couples step in unison huddled

under their vinyl domes.

It’s all a parade under black and white,

a synchronized rainbow of attitude,

adding  to the grand Romantic ballet

of bending, riding, stretching, gliding,

darting, jumping and turning to and fro.

 

The finale has the last drop crying

to the pavement, to the street,

washing the asphalt in its clarity,

a lachrymose river flowing down drains,

the mechanical traffic dispersing

the  rest in butterfly waves that

sends the ensemble to the edges,

leaving the coryphees alone, apart,

staring at each other in the evaporation,

waiting forlornly for the first trickle

to return and kiss their skin with joy.

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