RAIN DANCE

(Public domain photo courtesy http://www.public-domain-image.com/)

For Ron

You ran outside
To dance
Under the cloudburst,
Get yourself
Drenched,
Tempt the lightning.

You peeled up your T-shirt,
Pulled out the waist
of your jogging pants,
Both front and back,
To catch as much rain as you could, then
Struck a goofy ballet pose.
And you kept
Looking back at us, grinning
To please
A dry but bemused audience
Behind the store front window.

“You know, he does
No drugs or alcohol,”
Your former girlfriend said,
“He just gets like this
Naturally.”

I laughed, dismissed
The strike of
Inner lightning
Waking up the dancer
Long asleep in me,
Whose wounds no longer let him
Run out in the rain.



--© 2010 by Jack Veasey