Camden Street

“The devil
is beating his wife,”
my grandmother used to say
if the rain fell
while the sun was shining.
It was always a humid day
when the burdened sky
could not wait for cloud cover,
and the hurried downpour
never lasted
for more than a minute,
the faint sound of thunder
soon forgotten,
as if a dream.
Always there was a hush
on my grandmother’s face
as she stood ironing bed sheets
while the devil,
confused by what seemed
a reasonless trick of the weather,
took it out on her who
forever had been the same.

© Sweepy Jean and Sweepy Jean Explores the (Webby) World, 2013