Night Street

The dank petrichor of grainy night, meters stand like gravestones, the obsidian avenue slick as a sapphire, windowed granite rising in sharp cut shadows, wind gusting, tumbleweed clouds somersaulting in a moonless ghost town. I jingle keys with atonal sky and listen to my footsteps on concrete ticking like a clock. There are places to be. I hasten my step as rain drops resume, one by one mounting into a riotous crowd. Umbrella-less, I am soon sopping, hair a wet carpet, suit a gray saturated tarp, the briefcase and tote onyx boulders. My car is still a block away, but eventually I reach it like a leaf washing down stream. The tote slips off my shoulder as I stoop to retrieve fallen keys lying in a shallow puddle like a shattered talisman. Suddenly I begin laughing, dropping everything in the street, my face skyward, arms splayed like a crucifix. Now there is no tomorrow, only the farce of my predicament, standing like a drowned coyote howling at the moon as though it would be there forever.