A hot day in August
brought out the sunscreen,
the swimming pools and the saunas.
And lying back on lawn chairs
caused the thunder to come.
No one took this seriously
or bothered to move.
The rains only came after a teasing sport
of cat and mouse and then
only late in the afternoon;
Yet sounds like the rumbling of trucks delivering bolts
alerted people that some of the bolts had slipped
and some of them fell in great piles on the street.
What was the Mayor to do?
He rushed to the station with talk shows blazing
and announced he was
running for Weather Man.
The weathermen of course, were gathering the bolts
and lawyers were chasing the ambulances
and environmentalists were testing
the bolts for lead.
And all announced
they were running for Mayor
in case the Mayor was struck dead.
But nothing happened,
Just the thunder
And the gratefully cool air
that always followed such turbulence.