After the Rain

I’m midway down the block when a pretty woman rounding the corner of the music conservatory leans down to her young child and motions for him to look up, and the two of them break into huge smiles.

When I get past them I turn around to look in the direction they were looking, already knowing what I’ll see, and sure enough a rainbow stretches across the clearing sky shot with rose- and salmon-tinted clouds.

I turn back to my route home down 7th Avenue with a big grin on my face, and an older woman coming out of a restaurant across the street sees me, seeing her, and she smiles.

My smile gets bigger, and she swings her long hair and lifts a cigarette to her mouth, and a car crosses between us, the clean air is like polished bronze, and even though winter isn’t over, we still have a moment, just to breathe.