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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