"What the Hell is Going On With These Rainbows?"

By Claudia Ricci

OK so just now I was revising that rainbow poem I wrote last week.

You remember it, the one where I was writing about a rainbow when my husband suddenly called to me from the kitchen, “Oooh, there is a rainbow on the stove.”

I practically fell over.

Anyway, so just now, I was revising that poem.

And then, a moment later, I mean maybe two seconds later,
my son Noah
came wandering into my study.

“Hey, Noah, I am trying to write something,”
I said to him.
“I need some words.” I picked up my Oxford dictionary. “Give me three words.”

“I don’t need a dictionary,” he said. “I have three words.”

And before I could stop him he gave me these three words:

“Profligate.”
“Rainbow.”
"Lizard.”

I sat there. I blinked. I stared at his thick brown hair. “Noah. Why did you say rainbow?”

“I don’t know,” he said. By this point, he was lying here, petting the dog named Bear.

“But Noah, I was just this moment writing about a rainbow. How did you know?”

“I didn’t know,” he said. He laughed.

And then he just left the room, laughing.

And then I just sat here, wondering.

What the hell is going on with these
RAINBOWS?

Claudia Ricci is on the faculty at the University at Albany, SUNY, where she teaches English and journalism. She published her first novel, Dreaming Maples, in 2002.