Rain Dancing With Sherry

Rain Dancing With Sherry

The rain was frozen slush
covering my windshield.
We were stopped
at a red light.

We were on the way
to the Medical Center
to see a friend
who had been injured or sick.

I was tuned in to that
snip-snap sound
of the windshield wipers
imagining a secret poem.

After the visit
we sat in the hospital cafeteria.
I was watching her eat some soup
watching the colors
shifting in Sherry's eyes.

I had flown with the pagans
read poetry to the apes.
Now I had run out of space
with a Sand Witch on an island.

This last little bunch
is all memory.
What follows here now
is later in the story.
Narrating fragments of
an ever changing present.

Sherry looked ravishing
in her candy striped t-shirt
and snug denim jacket.
It was no longer jail bait with her
not so long ago it was.

I remember Sherry sitting
under a tree with me.
With an umbrella
like we were in some water world.

And later
on that arid little hill
behind Carver High School
where I first met her.
Stoned and repeating her name
while she couldn't
seem to answer.

I had seen her there
looking so sad
wandering down that hillside.
Life went on and so did we
I didn't see her again
after that

Back in the present
three years later
time for another rain dance.

As she sipped her soup
I took note of her chestnut hair
and spooky green eyes.

Around us
I could hear talk of the rain
everyone talking about the rain.

-Will Dockery / October 1981