45 min.

walking out on my own at lunchtime is, on occasion, good for my head– gives me some clear space, a little bubble of lightened gravity in the middle of my working day.

today it’s raining, so I put on my blue overcoat and popped my purple umbrella for the four block stroll through suburban skokie to the greek sandwich place on the corner.

I keep encountering dead things in my path lately– a juvenile raccoon fallen from a tree and playing host to fat, busy beetles who wove in and out of its skin on the cranberry bog trail up in michigan– and today a black squirrel on the sidewalk, looking so newly fallen, bright eyes staring, limbs curved as if with crawling, light skin showing through rain-drenched black fur– something in me wanted, foolishly, to shelter it from the rain.

the rose of sharon blossoms seem to be drinking in the moisture above their shed and trampled kind, the cosmos hanging like sodden pink damsels in the downpour.

I scuff out and sit before a droplet-streaked window and eat my sandwich slowly, gazing into traffic and thinking nothing in particular– and walk back with the palpable feeling of greater space inside my skull, loafers soaked, steps lighter.

2 Replies to “45 min.”

  1. something in me wanted, foolishly, to shelter it from the rain
    Not so foolish; the finer people automatically reach out to the vulnerable creatures, and death renders any living thing supremely helpless.

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