It's quiet right now.Shadows are silk on my hands as I type.
The sun is about 6 inches from setting behind the vacant house next to mine. Once a group of people lived in the downstairs apartment there. Their troubles were heavier than mine in many ways; they let their dog shit in my yard. Once they drank beers on my porch with me and told about Diane's baby and jail time and working on mopeds and how hard it is to pay child support and how warm evenings remind them of when they were kids.
I remember feeling lucky. I still feel lucky.
How rude to feel lucky that my life isn't theirs.
What an egocentric circle to spin.
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While on the issue of remembering, I want to say something here about summer. Something about milkweed. Something about a black dog named Cocoa; I used to press my ear against her belly, overflowing with puppies, and listen to the sacred movement. She was a good dog: my babysitter's dog with prune sized nipples pulled all the way to the ground. She followed me -- I was kind to her, to the ever flow of sweet puppies from her belly, to the snake my babysitter's boys killed with a slingshot. I ran to the cellar, sobbed; couldn't shake the writhing body, (innards ballooning out into the summer-evening, cool grass) out of my tiny-blonde mind. Something about cruelty. Something about growing up. Something right here about the sanctity of every Black Kingsnake.
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Look at that.
The shadows on my hands are heavier.
That sun found the roof.
