View from Apt. 1-A

I tread, barefoot, to my kitchenette
and then the window seat, to listen
to the storm as the coffee drips.
Just outside my first-floor window,
the building’s super curses the cloudburst
for catching him off-guard. He rails

as the downpour undoes the two dozen holes
he dug to house clumps of budding marigolds.
From a floor loftier than mine, a chihuahua
yips his spunky reply to thunder, Great Dane of the sky.
A woman struggles to push a stroller up the hill.
Her baby, not knowing enough to shrink from the storm,

lifts its pink face full tilt to it, and wails.

Beneath an ailing maple whose branches produce
nothing but chartreuse fuzz, the young couple
from Ukraine, newly moved in to Apt.l-B
with no furniture, one suitcase between them,
face each other on the grass, passing an apple
or a peach back and forth, one bite apiece.

No jackets on, just short-sleeved shirts,
they make no attempt to shield themselves
or run: there’s one good piece of fruit
between them and they’re green
and in spring’s thrall, and it’s only water,
only rain falling, after all.