Issue 15
Rain
Sarah Riner Payne
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Thunder on Sundays
The air smelled dark and fertile, as if the clouds, readying for rain, had
drawn moisture magnetically up through the soil until the two bodies met
humid in the middle to summon the weather in conference. It was difficult to
breathe; the atmosphere in Mama's garden was all ether and ozone, thick
substance of July in Virginia. The gladioli wilted in dark ruffles at their
edges, fragranceless, their glory gone. An effluvium of mosquitoes wavered
over the goldfish pond; said goldfish barely flickered its fins -- just
enough to stay afloat -- and I thought it wise. I, too, should move only just
enough in this Hot.
Daddy, who had grilled out every night of the year to this point, even in
February with his earmuffs on, was fixing a cold supper inside. I could see
his head just over the AC, moving in extensions of actions one could only
guess (for who could tell how the head was involved in the operation of
opening a can, chopping an onion, tearing lettuce?) It was an engaging -- if
short-lived -- game, like figuring out The Bionic Woman's plot with the
television's sound turned off. Then Daddy saw me and waved me on in.
~Sarah Riner Payne
Sarah Riner Payne is a writer of poetry and prose from Richmond, Virginia.
Look for her work in an upcoming issue of The HazMat Review. Email.
© 2004 by Sarah Riner Payne. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2004 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.