ChinaPond (july)

You there, across the lake
Can you see?
Are you looking out your gigantic picture window?
Do you see her, a pinpoint,
There on the end of the dock
Standing next to the yellow banana
Of an overturned kayak, the girl
In a black bikini, red popsicle
Dripping down her right elbow.
The light is eerie, the rain sweet and soft
The sky rolls syllables around in his mouth,
Trying to decide what to say
To the east, the sky flashes occasionally with far-off lightning.
When she was little, the girl
Used to think of metaphors for these storms,
God is angry, angels are crying.
Now she does not care about the emotions
of celestial beings,
she is merely enjoying the overlapping ringlets
on the pewter surface of the water,
the surprised “o”s that the droplets
make when they land in the water.
She is slightly sunburned,
freckles dot her nose and cheeks.
She is letting the rain roll down her back,
Bead up on her calves