Summer Storm

Sunday morning. A storm gathers around my apartment. The light is not silver, but gray. The windows are dark as gloaming. Chromatic aberration: orange and blue along the panes' edges, through my old glasses.

The rain starts, a few clanging drops on the metal chimneytops, then sheets of it on the roof across the way -- the wind blows it into waves, wavetops fly off like steam. Our neighbors' bamboo tosses in their backyard below. The loudest thunder yet shakes our wood floor.

The lights are off in the apartment; I see the rose-colored lightning illuminate me -- my white t-shirt, my hands on the keyboard. Water runs hard off the roof next door, over the pipe that's supposed to catch it. The path of the courtyard is covered in water, the rain fills it in from one low brick wall to the other.

At the bookstore, Margaret and I would hurry out to stand in front of the big strip-mall windows to watch storms. They come on faster in Maine. Here we know half an hour in advance, at least.

The rain changes direction, soaks the screens so everything blurs. I can still see the movement of the waterfall over the drainpipe, a flicker like fire. A bit of diminished thunder, the last fireworks before the finale.

Back to a few clangs on metal, a splashing waterfall. The storm drags tentacles of thunder behind it, moving on.