"RAIN IN COSQUIN 3"
copyright 2006 by IGNATIO LEONARDI
Three Memories of Rain
1.
Ankle-deep puddles on a dirt road. Squishy yellow velvet under my toes. Bubbles bulging and popping. Raindrops, heavy like ripened wild plums, sink into my head and shoulders. Green-and-white-checkered dress, bought in May, already too short, its embroidered front pocket bursting with horse chestnuts.
2.
Blueberry hands, lips, and cheeks; toes aimless in the newspaper-stuffed rubber boots. "Hurry, run and hide; under that wailing birch tree." She speed-waddles towards it, beats me to the cover, bares her yellow, protruding teeth in a scowl of delight, stretches her arms towards me, pulls me into the smell of onions and wild mushrooms.
I wiggle out, rest my head on her spongy belly, watch the thick veil of water, the trembling, dripping leaves; only a few drops reach my testing palms. "Grandma, why don't you like the rain?"
3.
Folded, my umbrella is three inches long. It is gloriously red, like an August tomato. It is so weightless, I forget it at the bottom of my handbag and meander through the feathery city drizzle; bottle-green moss pushes through my skin, a light tickle. From the crack of the asphalt, a curl of grass stretches into the sky amidst the clammy trunks of the skyscrapers.
Copyright 2006 by Ania Vesenny
