A Summer Rainstorm

by Matthew Zapruder

Sometimes I am happy to be
here in this bright room

drifting through music made by others

looking down on the heads of the people passing
teaching each other that life is forgoing

I think everyone I can see is partially sad
because we will never be fully forgiven

this apartment building has seen so much moving through the city

well ordered troops
many proud careful mothers and fathers pushing carriages

many people holding hands or talking on their cell phones and crying
hundreds of girls each wearing a plastic tiara

carefully placed on her head by the mayor at the annual spring parade

this building with the ordinary green facade
no one will see as they wait for the storm to pass

their breath creating giant cloud forms

from my window I can see their heads

it makes me smile a little with love how much they look like moose in the zoo
how they stand very patiently close to one another

under the door of the sky
their memories gracefully blundering into the long cool forest

full of shadows

our life is the one we already have.

–Read at St. Lydia’s on September 25