We each exclaimed simultaneously:
“Let’s go outside!”

and we ran storming down the stairs,
and jumped out the door
she was wearing a pink tank top, spring skirt and sandals
I was dressed black
wearing white socks
no shoes.

It is not that I didn’t think to put on shoes,
the thought actually did occur to me when I reached the bottom of the stairs
but Passion could not spare me a second
no matter how brutally Ration knew NYC sidewalk conditions.

We jumped into the streets,
ran with the fastest jog our footwear allowed to the corner
and spun around our arms outstretched
in the sharp sleeting rain,
which the power pedestrians took shelter from
under apartment building canopies,
umbrellas
and newspapers.

It is dark.
the sky is not blue,
nor is it black
it’s more…
green,
oddly,
an enigmatic
apocalyptic
shade of green.
Hot clouds are crashing into Cold clouds
Thunder Sound
encapsulating all
and lightning flashes,
so that for a second the world is yellow.

We run across the streets,
Headlights of cars shine foggy
and we run into Central Park
where the nucleus of the Rain Dance Party is at.

The rain was intense!
wind blew it hard hither
and it streaked into our skin,
cut like the glass I feared would cut my feet
through my floppy sopping socks,
and I could swear that
the rain felt just like
Electricity.

It hailed
Stones
shaped to knock one unconscious!

We ran up to the reservoir track,
wind so strong it could’ve blown us back
over the
metal fences we ran betwixt
and into the city’s water supply
along with
fishermen’s shoes
and soda cans of six packs
and bags reminiscent of Rickie Fitts
and countless twigs from trees,
and piss pissed by those who had no place to piss
and even a trashed sofa-couch,
and it’s a mystery how that got in there…
but we ran on through the rain,
and down into meadows
interweaving amongst the trees
and dancing, spinning
even singing
in the rain
about Jeremiah the bullfrog
and I do proclaim
Joy to the world
that can produce such wonder.

When the storm calmed as sudden as it came,
we retraced our steps in peaceful amble
my clothes clinged to my skin,
saturated with water
and it accumulated more as my hair
dripped
into it,

now it was cold and I wanted to pee
but I felt so much serenity!
as slowly
the sky brightened
we walked to school
and I waited at the entrance,
sitting in lotus position
while she retrieved a change of PE clothes from her locker.

One girl, waiting,
asked if I was wet.
A rhetorical question, I would guess,
for it was clear as chameleon skies
that I was utterly drenched
being as I was dripping on the recently-vacuumed carpet.
The lacrosse team returns from a game while I’m waiting
so that now the 101 threshold is both wet and smelly,
Catherine returns
and we leave,
return to my house,
where my mother yells at us for
running around in lightning
cuz it’s dangerous and plus,
my father almost died that way once…

she doesn’t understand
that it was beautiful too
and, granted, danger may kill your body
but not so utterly as
a fear to live
will kill your spirit.