In front of me, on the way to work, at intersections. In the rain, the white panels
shimmer, the deep greens and yellows glisten as they move. At
night, their variety lights and signs
twinkle like a fountain over glass, like your own windshield after each arm has passed, giving you a moment of visibility.
They say good bye. Hello. Maybe, I will see you again.
The classic movie scene. As they exit, the characters' faces are wet, their hair flattened out, showing the breaking of the human spirit, showing that they don't care how they look. They meet the jilted lover or the decision they changed their mind about. They run out to airports, coming out late for intimate dinners, almost having missed their rendevous.
I couldn't stay away. Come back. Take me with you. Give me another chance.
The interior of a cab in the rain is always slicker, blacker, less grimy, more seductive. To run in from chaos, a near escape, into the arms and legs and fur coats and leather handbags.
We've gotten away. We made it. Close call.
The warm and heavy heart of someone else's longing, a man with stubble and coffee eyes, a moist shirt in pastel stripes, chewing a week's worth of toothpicks, scanning the streets like a vulture. He waits for you to need him, waits to be the silent listener, your wrinkled bills and wet change, cold from the ground and listless night.
How many bodies have been housed in this husk? How many stories left like litter in the footwells? How many of us have traced our fingers in the fog on the glass, watching the raining boring into people like salt?