Steel Gray City
Woke up to the fleecing white and I yelled like a harpooned polar bear: “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” April, make up your mind. One day you’re pushing roses and peonies, the next you’re steel gray and wet tires. It’s a good thing, April, that your perfume is so bewitching. That fresh rain smell is up there with church basement smell. That is, the real smell of rapture. Out on the street it smells like snow and wet concrete. Wettop combovers and Manitoba cowboy boots1 a-plenty. A few toques and scarves as well – everyone trying to negotiate the slush. Then there are the “I don’t cares” and the sandal wearers, gleefully inobservant of the present conditions. Ripped and patched winter coats make encore appearances from the nether regions of many closets. Immaculately kept and possibly never-really-used mountain garb is trotted out one last time. Above it all is a sky the color of dull metal. Uninspiring; almost painful. The buildings of downtown are reflected in puddles and they move with each falling drop. Look, up there. Blue glass buildings are striking against the gray, their edges perfect.
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1 Rubber boots.