Parasol
Matthew Daddona

S for
sound; parasol symbol for
stolen shade.
"We are always under the weather."

Rain parts with sentiment. Today,
a holiday like no other. Storm
clouds over Normandy
where grandfather got
sea sick.

I'll swim, I say,
expecting the deluge,
I haven't yet lost my wits.
But if there's time,
there's time to flit above
vestiges of what the locals call,
a "coastal flood,"
a peripheral storm
their esses shaped like
sea shells.

Your parasol,
an eternal souvenir,
how hapless it now seems.