Carol Frith Urban Rain, 1974 Bright phone booths in a pin-drop rain. Light blooms along the street where the rain isn't. Shiplap Victorians lean into the sidewalk. I think about moss. Oblong shadows hurry along the alley and turn right, past bright phone booths in a pin-drop rain. In an upstairs window box, coral azaleas mumble. I take three steps down, past shiplap Victorians leaning into the light, and step into a cellar café: La Manzana Blanca. White apples hide themselves on a windowsill next door to the rain-drenched phone booths. When the apples age, they will make a pale, seed-filled cider, clear as the rain that ravishes the air around the shabby Victorians lining the sidewalk. And now the rain is over. It has disappeared into the white seeds of the whole afternoon, into the wet row of shining phone booths, into the shiplap Victorians that lean into the pale light.

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