30 Day Picture Prompt Challenge

Rainbow Umbrella

Back in the day when rainbows
weren't synonymous with being gay
and were simply pretty colors
that could brighten up a day,
I had a rainbow umbrella.

It was a parasol when I played dress-up,
kept me dry when it should rain,
kept me from turning scarlet
and a night of itchy pain, because
I had my rainbow umbrella.

Had it with me when I first went
to the tip of Cape Cod to wander
not knowing the colors had transmogrified
and it gave me much to ponder,
as I walked with my rainbow umbrella.

Prismatic refractions split the sun
into all the shades of colors bright,
any day when colors arc the sky
has made the shadows all take flight
and I stroll, twirling, my rainbow umbrella.

It doesn't mean I'm gay
and it doesn't mean I'm not,
but sometimes I wish another symbol
could simplify what's what
as I hang up my rainbow umbrella.

"How magnificent, how much strength you have
that you can advertise,"
once said a woman as I walked
and I stared at her with puzzled eyes,
just out in the rain with my umbrella.

"It's raining," I answered.
"I didn't want to get wet," I said with meaning.
Not making a statement
on my sexual leaning,"
as I walked away with my rainbow umbrella.

"You should have gotten one
with flowers on it instead!"
the woman said as I walked away.
I never so much as turned my head:
I like my rainbow umbrella!

Politically incorrect?
I suppose it could be said
but it has nothing to do with how folks are
or who's with whom in bed.
It is simply a rainbow umbrella.

I've had it now for fifty years,
and it has served me to a T
and I expect I'll use it til its spokes pop out
and it no longer shelters me.
Me and my rainbow umbrella.