Juliana Gray

When clouds turn heavy, rich and mottled as an oyster bed, when the temperature drops so fast that fog conjures itself inside the cars, as if the parking lots were filled with row upon row of lovers, when my umbrella veils my face and threatens to reverse itself at every gust of wind, and rain lashes my legs and the hem of my skirt, but I am walking to meet a man who’ll buy me coffee and kiss my fingers— what can be more beautiful, then, than these boys sprinting through the storm, laughing, shouldering the rain aside, running to their dorms, perhaps to class, carrying, like torches, their useless shoes?