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We sit by the beach, quietlike, listening to the waves lapping and watching the sky. “It looks like a painting,” you whisper. And I can see what you mean. The way the ends of the purple sunset blur into the sepiaed black of the night sky, and then the darker water, as if someone dragged their brush down as it was running out of paint. Lightning hits somewhere behind the cloud and for a second, the sky is lit up. And again. And again. A coherent rubato. We both know but don’t say, thunder follows lightning, and after thunder, rain.