Today's
Special
Gene Kelly
is "singing in the rain"
as a faint mist caresses the fruits
and vegetables cradled in their bins.
While he
assures us he's happy again,
a young woman looking old attempts
to comfort a child who's decided, no
the music
is not pretty, Mom,
and the burst of artificial rain
is somewhat less than amusing.
Behind
the furtive, wary glance of
eyes who've seen the News Live At
Five one too many times, I detect
a fatigue
akin to yet another fear that
maybe, just maybe, what she once
cherished was really nothing more
than a
brief bit of old song to which
she listened with bemusement but
without hearing an underlying warning
about rain
yet to fall, affection in erratic
showers to preserve some illusion of
freshness over inner rot of disaffection;
the slow
trail of tears washing away
seeds ungerminated of fairytale hopes
and dreams she cannot forget. I would
offer her
child a sucker, but that is not
politically correct, so I give it to the
mother, and leave this morgue of flora.
I buy a
bottled juice, walk to the park past
the three bridges for a secluded spot where,
among trees but away from music, I drink.
Copyright © 2001 Royce Sykes
