My love
            of poetry
               makes so much sense
            now

Smiled and thought of Oklahoma weather, the coming year.

Summer Downpour on Campus

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?

-- Juliana Gray

Truckin'

Starting Monday, this will be my route to work. Oof.

May
again. Mary is crowned with flowers in her blue grotto on the corner of Main-State-and-Elm. I stop every coming and going to pull a few tiny trees. Leaves now, curled small and webbed and waiting for next week's flush of rain and heat. Mill river stretches and suns itself. Inviting as it looks, that water's still damn cold. Always put my hands in anyway. A good day for a long walk. 60 degrees in May.