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I am wading in the interim

In a midsummer rainstorm:

For all its humidity and humility

The sun still has the gumption

To peer through the stratus clouds

Like a voyeuristic neighbor

     How far up must the heavens be

    That their tears run cold

     By the time they reach the earth?

Now I’m lingering in a puff

Of second hand smoke

Telling Jules,

     You’re too young to have given up hope.

(She lives up the street; we used to meet

Regularly to practice astral projection)

Her once effusive countenance has quieted

To something softer and calmer, dusk like

Somber

And because we’re two underage girls

In the middle of New York City

We hop the Q to Coney Island

Where the sand is iridescent blue, radioactive

On the shoreline.

     The midsummer rainstorm was a five-minute

     Flood

     Like all things it sobers and quiets

     And there’s drizzle on my arms.