Rainmaker

It started to sprinkle as I stepped onto the porch.

But this far into the drought I didn’t turn back for an umbrella.

I dared the sky to soak me to the skin as I headed for the river.

But the dark gray cloud came to nothing more than a tease.

I’d like to think the sky was bluffing,

but I suspect it didn’t even notice my play,

walking defiantly through the dusty alley.

I’m not the master at this game,

but only one of us can die laughing.

Sequence

What does that brick mean?

Now that one?

And now the sidewalk

full of them,

weeds and grass

coming through the gaps,

the next stretch clear,

the pattern:

one brick blocking my path,

the next pointing the way.

What does that brick-shaped

patch of unbounded sky mean?

And now that next patch

of sky blue,

unshaped,

unsegmented,

not-brick,
and then the one after the next,
stretching to the horizon -

what does it mean?

And now I walk on concrete.

What does this crossing line mean?

And the next?

And the next?

And the next?

I will end this inconsequence,

except for one more.

A man sleeps on the next bench over.

A boy plays in the fountain,

the front of his pants and shirt soaked,

his hands feeling the motion

and the waterness

of the water.

And I sit, here,

scribbling

in the shade.

What do I mean?

The woman on the merry-go-round

I have not yet reconciled myself to the reality that life passes us by.

I was standing at the corner when I saw a young woman wearing dark glasses, driving a dark SUV, her dark hair pulled back so that I could see her attractive face as she approached.

As she reached the crosswalk, her mouth curled into an expression that I could have searched for some minutes more for clues to the meaning of life and my curiosity.

But in another instant, she was gone, probably, from my perspective, forever.

And, furthermore, the moment I captured in my mind’s eye was already but a fading shadow.

I might have halted the rotation of the earth on a whim –

except then we would all have rocketed into space, screaming from our painted ponies as the merry-go-round screeched to a halt, gears shattering, melting from the consequences of my monkey wrench thrown into the works, the music slurring down past guttural groans into the silent vacuum of space.

So as there seems to be no solution to this dilemma of time, I will walk this way again tomorrow, hoping against hope that the woman of my mystery will cross my path again.

But even should lightning strike twice, I doubt I will ever see that look on her face again.

The cowgirl and the dude

Across the street strode the young,

blazing blond, cowgirl.

I couldn’t help noticing

her long, strong, prairie-burned, legs

above the tops of her scuffled boots

and below the fringe of her jean cutoffs.

Her unbuttoned red bandana shirt

billowed in the Kansas wind

over a white T.

Git along, little doggies –

her cattle were nowhere in sight,

but I am certain she caught up with them

after she vanished

from my sun-shot squint.