The inspiration for this poem is Lianne Mercer, who described with great delight her new red raincoat from Lands’ End.
I’m Afraid My Raincoat Was Out Dancing All Night
(the moon was full).
If it had been a sensible brown or black or gray or even navy, no one
would have noticed. But it was red,
the fire engine red of a children’s storybook.
My red raincoat danced
against the creeping drought,
flapped like flopping raindrops, twirled like swirling thunderstorms.
This has happened before.
I’ve had to retrieve my raincoat from many the scene of a dancing
crime. Our relationship is fraught. I want
it to wait quietly in the closet. It wants
to scare up some precipitation.
Neither approach increases atmospheric moisture.
But today
when I went outside before dawn to get the paper, it was wet
with dew. I left the news dripping in the driveway
put on my red raincoat
and together we danced out the door.
