Under My Umbrella

As days get shorter and colder, weather wetter and wilder, I’m back in the habit of packing an umbrella whenever I leave the house. Your father laughs at me.

“You’ve a perfectly good raincoat with a hood,” he says. “Umbrellas are dangerous when crossing roads.”

“So are hoods.”

I kiss him goodbye and emerge into a late October afternoon. It’s not raining, so I head for the park. That’s where I last held your hand, pushed you on the swings, raced you across the football pitch, towards the pond… What will I do there without my hands upon your summer face?

I’m about to leave, when I see you run, hood up, from seesaw to roundabout. It’s started to rain. I unfurl the umbrella, walk back, and sit on the roundabout. It turns, gains momentum – I feel you hop on and take my hand.

Kim M. Russell, 13th October 2025

Image by Tanya Prodaan on Unsplash

Monday has come around again, and with it Prosery at the dVerse Poets Pub, this week with Melissa and, oh, umbrellas.

Melissa reminds us that Prosery is a very short piece of prose or flash fiction that tells a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, which can be any genre, but does have a limit of 144 words. Somewhere within it, we must include given lines from a poem, without changing word order or adding any words. However, we may add or change punctuation.

The poem from which Melissa has chosen lines is from the book Call & Response 3: Poets and Artists in Dialogue (Grosse Pointe Congregational Church Arts Ministry, 2019), which was sent to her by a friend. The poem ‘Oh, Umbrellas’, was inspired by the painting, Umbrella Sky by artist Rocco Pisto, and was written by Jeffrey Hermann.

The lines to be included in our Prosery are:

“What will I do there
without my hands upon
your summer face?”

37 thoughts on “Under My Umbrella”

    1. On dear. Thank you, Bjorn. I shouldn’t be trying to do this. I’m not at all well, on antibiotics, and my head is all over the place. and I Have a new laptop. I’ll try again in the morning.

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    1. Apologies, De. I’m not myself. I’m on antibiotics, trying to get to grips with a new laptop, and not in the right headspace. I’ll link up a quadrille in the morning.

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    2. Apologies, De. I’m not myself. I’m on antibiotics, trying to get to grips with a new laptop, and not in the right headspace. I’ll link up a quadrille in the morning. Can you delete this from Mister Linky, please?

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  10. Kim, your poem reminds me that I never owned an umbrella until I lived in a sunny country.

    I still want to play on roundabouts too.

    Nicely written – you’ve sparked many thoughts here. 👏

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