One Coat Over Two Heads by Luigi Coppola

One Coat Over Two Heads

I hear it before I see it: swish
of arms, clang of zip on teeth, cuffs

clinging onto sides like a drowning man.
The rain had been diving down for hours:

swelling cardboard, bulging canopies,
turning windows into waterfalls, cold

and etched on people behind it, liquid scars
on waiting faces. A couple (in love with each

other’s proximity) pause, plead, panic,
giggle and brace themselves against each

other’s frame and lunge together into the wet;
one swishing, clanging, clinging coat

over two heads. And they are gone, pacing
away from shelter, their shared fate enough

to make the danger manageable, bearable,
welcomed in fact, as entwined bodies

weathering a storm inside, outside, everywhere.
Droplets and couplets overflow. I sit. I watch

them leave. I write. Rain fills my teacup.

.

Luigi Coppola (www.luigicoppolapoetry.blogspot.co.uk) teaches and writes in London, England. Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize twice, he appeared in the Worple Press anthology ‘The Tree Line’ and publications include Acumen, The Frogmore Papers, The High Window, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Iota, Magma, Orbis, Neon, Rattle, The Rialto, THE SHOp and Snakeskin.