These girls I see
all day
with their lithe
ways
and plaited hair,
all with umbrellas,
black, ungainly
ones,
cousins to rusty
bicycles—
are they, just
them, expecting rain?
But although most
are closed
some are already
held aloft
against the blazing
sky.
There is no common purpose
I can see,
except they seem
tools of
importance.
Some toy with them
with nervous
eagerness, unsure
of
what to do and how
to be,
some,
very few,
swing theirs
in broad arcs of
effrontery,
some hold them
solemnly
like parts of a
uniform,
some seem to want
to keep
them out of view,
the way one might
attempt
to hide a cello or
a
team’s supply of
hockey sticks.
All day I watch,
all day I’m lost
for thoughts.
I see them suddenly
appear
at bus stops
everywhere,
or else
in Pettah standing
next to bristling
market stalls,
in Cinnamon Gardens
stepping out
from underneath
magnolia trees,
and at De Soyza
Circus,
where the crows go
bouncing
around, behind and
in between their
steps.
On Duplication Road
their numbers swell
and just as
instantly they disappear.
It’s when I reach
the coast,
upon the Green,
where people stand
in lines to chatter
back at the
grumbling ocean down below,
that things begin
to come together in my mind.
I see three of
these girls, with circumspection,
cross the lawn,
sidestepping all the huddled families,
sit down and
carefully arrange their skirts
and then bring
their umbrellas down
level and open
straight before their eyes.
A boyfriend slips
behind each one.
And then with no
change in the sky,
most gently—
it is not a storm,
there’s no monsoon—
it sets to raining
kisses.
(This poem is included in my book The Observation Car which is available at http://www.lulu.com/content/2588218)


