At the drive-in in the Long Ago. One of those hot sultry Virginia nights in her father’s pickup, my arm around her tanned bare shoulders, the tan lines from the straps of her bikini top a phantom.
And it’s good. We both know it is.
But it’s not forever.
And above, a ranging thunderstorm scraps the Belly of Heaven, the sheet lightening fills the deafening silence. But we smell the rain. Far off. A whisper of what’s to come in the spin of time.
And I bring her next to me, her warm hand tracing my bare thigh. Our lips meet. And she tastes of popcorn, buttery and salty, and the P.B.R. she’d smuggled in.
And the first hints of thunder slide in on a cool wind. The splatter of raindrops spanking the pickup’s windshield and we don’t care.
Then the rain comes down.
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