Dance in the Rain

I used to run outside at the first clap of summer thunder to dance in the rain.

The steps are easy: tilt your head back, stretch your eagle arms out, and spin.

It tastes like salt and showers and growing things.

Like Yes! Yes! Yes!
And Grow. Grow. Grow.

I miss my friends who would dance in the rain without a question, but with a look of recognition, we would bolt.

First one there gets one drop more.

Dancing in the rain was just the right thing to do.

It was the necessary thing.

But now, I’m without a dance partner.

Now, with the closeness of expectations supposed, of duties to show being done, I’ve lost the dance.

But somehow the song of it still wants a voice.

Somehow that thing with feathers still flies a short hop inside and stirs what’s left of what dreaming and passion and the immediacy of dancing in the rain can do.

Now there are headphones to dampen normal noises.

The happy wag of a dog comes from the sky like shrapnel in my back.

A cat on a counter meowing to signal the sun squeezes my burning shoulders with expectations of duty.

That same wagging dog paces in the swampy night air.

He repositions himself on the floor every few minutes to find a cooler spot to lay.

If there were a clap of thunder now, would he know the signal?

Would he go dancing with me in the rain?

Would he lift his head up and taste the pregnant potential of growing things and know what clouds might do?

Of what reckless compassion might do?

Of what dancing in the rain with a friend would most definitely do?

It will be 45 degrees cooler than yesterday when I wake tomorrow, when I walk to the kitchen to toast a frozen waffle, fill the electric teapot, and take the first pill of the day.