10:22 am October 29th, 2011

It's the second officially cold day of the season
And the snow that was supposed to come is
falling
Over shivery fall leaves,
Sideways on the current of the wind,
Splashing jacketfronts,
As freezy raindrops, breaking in tiny explosions on the topsides of umbrellas.

The last sip of a cold hot chocolate in hand,
I'm walking your way and
You, mine.
I'm rushing just the right amount and
You're leisure-loping
(But we travel toward each other at the same pace; your legs are much longer than mine).

And these moments are cold and dangerous
We calculate, size each other up,
Notice how skinny the sidewalk gets when two of us, and two umbrellas, too, must share it.
Will I step onto the road?
Will you run into the wall?
Or shall we collide -- tangoing missed steps, tangled umbrella spokes -- ?

But time's up for thinking, decision-ing,
Cause you're here and I'm here
The moment is now and somehow,
We share a few seconds of brain wave synchronization:

You'll lift your umbrella arm
While I duck to fit under it,
And it's magic - we're a smidge and little bit,
Two momentary puzzle pieces
Made to fit together at this moment, on this rainy sidewalk, in our umbrella tango.