Rain

The lightning is close and so harshly white I flinch, and the thunder cracks right after it, ear splittingly earth splittingly loud. I’m sitting on the front stoop watching the show, remembering camping trips with soggy sleeping bags, and a memory drifts up of hail like these fresh bits of hail by my toes. The hail that time must have come and stopped quickly because otherwise I can’t understand why the adults would have let us run around while it was coming down and also I only remember it burning cold on the soles of my gravel-calloused feet not beating on my scalp. The adults sat on the screened in porch which they tore off the summer I was eleven to make way for the new deck so this was at least 35 years ago. Tonight I toe at the ice and it’s just as shockingly bitingly cold as in my memories. I worry a little about my car and the insurance but there’s nothing I can do about it since I bought it without measuring to make sure it would fit through the garage door, and it doesn’t so if the hail ruins it, I’ll figure out what to do then. Now I just watch the weird eddys forming in the middle of the intersection where the storm drain can’t keep up with the deluge and wonder if it is all going to just wash away. I should go camping when the weather clears. I should start canoeing again. I should go poke the storm drain with a stick to see if it’s clogged. I should head in, it’s time for bed.