Susan Forrest
shopping in the rain
In the rain they all walk with their heads down, like they’re looking for change lost on the sidewalk. They walk with their heads down, as if trying to read their fate through their feather-stepping feet. In the rain they walk like crows quartering a new-plowed field in search of beetles and crawly things to eat. This one opens an umbrella, that one closes an umbrella, and in the rain they keep their heads down.
Sister, Sister, what are you shopping for? Tell me it’s red flannel pyjamas. The world could end tomorrow—collapse in on itself while we feather-step heads bowed all up and down the sidewalk—it could burst into flame tomorrow and make us food for beetles and I’d be content if only I could believe you were buying red flannel pyjamas.
In the rain we all walk like nuns, demure, unassuming, obedient to the sidewalk. We open and close our umbrellas, we keep our heads down, and we never buy red flannel pyjamas no matter how much we want them.
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