Spinning Out

In morning drizzle umbrellas uncoil.
Bony geometrical shapes fused together
like tortoise scutes in awkwardly partnered
slow dances to indeterminate destinations.
In this shell cave her pink coat briefly flickers
but melds into the humid melee of bodies
as dense as the fog that fills her mind.
She grips the rudder of her umbrella,
wincing as her joints throb and crunch.
She frowns at the golden clasped clutch,
the rainbow striped tote, falling tangled
to her feet, grooves still indented
in the thin creped whites of her palm.
She reaches for her pretty bags, jarring
with the rhythm of the crawling creature
and she’s spinning, only the pads of her
fingertips looped in the jumbled objects,
squeezed out, half crouched, nails tearing
into the seams of her black nylon stockings.
But, she can see the sky. She knows the sky.
That is the same as she has always known.