A Halloween Rainbow

Stabbed like a stalk of celery

into the outskirts of Wilton,

a fragment of rainbow marks

the spot where luck runs out.

That’s because the storm still storms

in its vortex, sunshine lobbing

photons into a drapery of rain.

We have to keep driving east

into a simmer of headlights

behind which angry commuters

twiddle with their radios,

hoping to tune in good news.

An expensive sort of evening.

Colors wash off in the rain,

exposing our plain humanity.

Everyone who spots the rainbow

pulls off the road to snap

a photo or two, hoping this omen

isn’t ominous as a shark smile

but sprightly as a bough of blossoms.

At an office in Amherst our cat

has suffered dental surgery

and wants to come home with us

with her carnivore sneer intact.

At the moment neither day nor night

applies to this fluttery landscape.

Parked cars at a roadside café

shine with that wet metal shine

we’d like to impose on each other

to restore our flagging fortunes.

The rainbow fades for a minute

or two, then recurs in greater pomp.

It embodies a certain bombast,

illuminating excess ions,

but isn’t political enough

to critique the way we’d parse

a gravel pit or housing project.

Remember the double rainbow

over the huge open copper mine

near Tucson, where a gleaming braid

of railroad caught all the colors?

Wilton offers a homier scene,

the rainbow masking the indifference

of lightning raking the distance.

Let’s drive as deliberately

as believers on a pilgrimage,

and maybe our cat will greet us

with a hint of primal emotions

that like this prismatic rainbow

offers the subtleties we need.