A shadowed mass stumbled out of the reeds. A skunk, pawing at nothing in particular, winced at the sun and shook unsteadily under its own weight. Rocco, always playful, nosed the creature while dancing around the dazed animal.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen….
And also…
God,
Please, please, please,
give me big …
Summer in the Bronx lasts forever, and it is like this: naked bodies that are at once child-skinny and child-swollen sprinting through spray-capped fire hydrants, stained popsicle sticks in neat piles on the sidewalk, asphalt that remembers the warm smell of rain long after it storms.
I remember burying the seeds every time I ate an apple. They never grew into apple trees. I remember going to the airport for fun.
I remember, on Thompson Street, the moment they called the 2020 presidential race. I remember the way my childhood home smelled when it was completely empty.
The school bus halts at my stop. My cul-de-sac still out of view, I continue forward, listening to the satisfying crunch of leaves under my feet, trying to forget the day I just had.
Just outside of Grey’s Papaya, there was an odd, frozen cluster of people. Neither my babysitter nor I could see through or over the group from afar, so we kept on walking toward it. Valerie squeezed my little hand.