Storm Waiting

Storm Waiting

Heat. Sweat. Car-dust. Rank odours creep from drains.

Belligerent sky rumbles, withholding rain.

I mooch disgruntled through the city streets,

Dragging my will on swollen, dirty feet.

‘Hashish?’ a slouching Arab softly calls.

He leans in sullen shade against a wall.

I shake my head and try to hasten past,

Watching him, wary, in the shop-fronts’ glass.

Forty degrees, so humid. Stores succumb...

Grey, roll-down eyelids shuttered, one by one.

No stamina for commerce, nor for fun,

Scarcely a soul outside till evening comes.

I wait the storm’s beginning, in a square,

And urge the rain, come soon to purge the air.

© S.P.D.