December Rain

A December day

In Boston

Lays gray rain

In cold layers

Over everyone.

Unequally.

That high school boy

Wearing shorts

Does not deign to be affected.

Nor his lady whose

Open coat and scooped shirt

Defy perturbations

For loftier goals.

The traffic cop

In a yellow slicker

With gloves and hat

Shifts from foot to foot.

And the men repairing the street

Toil mechanically

Stiffening by night.

A few fume, frustrated,

Or furious with the weather’s insults.

But I have no objection,

A secret I conceal lest

I annoy those suffering.

I’d rather fight

Nothing so obdurate as

The December rain.

I’d rather marshal strength

For those bigger foes

Crouched in the future.

12/14