Rainy Day

A grandmother bakes

A batch of warm cookies

Peppered with butterscotch chips,

A chocolate kiss pressed in the center,

For her grandchildren

Swinging their feet at the kitchen table,

Their rubber boots and socks

Placed under the radiator

To dry;

An older brother mixes cocoa powder

Into steaming mugs of milk,

Humming as he drops marshmallows,

One,

        Two,

                Three,

Into the one painted pastel pink;

He carries them to his little sister,

Coloring in her sketchpad

With glitter gel pens,

So together they can watch

Sleeping Beauty;

A little girl skips,

Splashing through puddles,

Her hair wet and clinging

To her raspberry raincoat;

She stops to delicately sniff

The lilies-of-the-valley

Before plucking one

To give to her grandmother,

To thank her for the warm cookie

And dry spot for her boots

She know she will receive;

Thunder still booming outside,

A younger sister sips cocoa

And hands her brother a drawing

Done in glittery gel pen

Of the two of them together

In the sunshine,

Her as Sleeping Beauty

(Of course);

A rainbow arcs through the sky,

And the grandmother,

                                 Little girl,

Older brother,

                      Younger sister,

All smile.