First Rain

Lightning is dancing a furious

jig outside, I'm reading Asimovs' "The

Gods Themselves" (how appropriate during

this show of heavenly force)

Seagree dozes in my lap

a fuzzy gray-black ball.

She sighs, I smile,

return to my book.

Thunder explodes overhead

an atom bomb

I cringe, Seagree yowls, hair bristling

leaping off my lap to hide under the sofa.

A frightened child

holding knees to chest,

I rock myself

as you'd have done

if your arms could have reached from California to Crete.

-J. Anne Allphin