Forecast

I’m transfixed on the window on this rare

Southern California rainy day, imagining

the drops are glad to finally get their own

feet wet, even if the terrain is all lack of

traction and oil slick, pondering how one

would give back borrowed time because

there’s something so contemplative about

the duo of gray sky and undeserved grace.

I just read about a Japanese man who hasn’t

spoken to his wife in 30 years, and don’t

shoot the translator, but communicating

for decades via nothing but nods and grunts

is a love language so basic and primal, it

should be regarded as the beginning of

intimacy. But the iciness between skin and

the coldest of shoulders creates a frostbite

so damaging, sometimes the only way to

heal is to sever the limbs, despite years after

the dissolution of arm and torso, best and

friend, man and wife, the body still

can feel the sensations that tap like the

nervousness of aborted toes long after

the amputation. So we do the best we can—

slow down, avoid haphazard lane changes,

and wait for the light and warmth of the sun,

all while navigating life through conditions we

never learned to drive in.