Quick steps slosh through thick puddles
Pushing forward through the empty, soaking street.
The pressing rain blurs sky and earth;
Air full with pounding, insistent water.

Tugging a soggy gray hood
Further down his dripping forehead,
He checks the time and breaks into a lopsided run,
Briefcase bouncing heavy on tired legs.

It's eight forty three
Running for the eight forty five bus;

It's eight forty four,
Running for the
Crowded board room meetings,
Pressed navy suit jackets, too-tight striped ties;

It's eight forty five,
Sprinting for
Five times breathed office air,
Carpets stained with three am coffee spills.

A strong, outstretched hand
Steadies the man as he rounds a corner,
Propelled straight into the small figure leaping across the sidewalk.
Slowing to step around the boy-

The little boy,
Dancing.
Arms reaching high, face scrunched towards the glowing, falling, sky.
The little boy,
In a blue rain coat and yellow boots;
In the empty
Gray street,
In the pounding morning rain.

Shyly glancing up
Into blank eyes,

Moments

          stretch

                    on the soaking street corner

And the small boy with his yellow boots
And the tall man with his leather briefcase.
The young boy with his tentative smile
The tall man with his tired legs.

Innocence and wonder reflected
Back into the man's eyes
As the briefcase clicked against the pavement,
As a pair of yellow boots squished into soft new mud,

As two heads tilt up to the clouds,
Two pairs of eyes close to the sky.
Sheets of rain slide over two faces,
Over smooth curves and wrinkling paths.

The steady, uneven, rhythm of the raindrops is broken
By the eight forty five bus

By the scrape of the briefcase
On the wet pavement

By the quickly fading footsteps
Disappearing in the rain

And then
Into

A cloud of exhaust