signing off for summer—

on shifting seasons and the wash of a storm.

There’s a rainstorm coming, and there’s change coming, too. There’s a rainstorm coming, and there’s a baby in the lobby standing in Nikes on the counter. He’s looking up at the lights on the ceiling. I hear Mk.gee singing: “cause if you wanna go then baby go wide.” There’s a rainstorm coming after a long, sunny day of basketball and music in the park and walking dogs and fistfuls of potato chips and clementines and coming home covered in dirt and sweat, unable to move a muscle. There’s a rainstorm coming, and I’m spent. I mix rose water with cocoa and soy milk and make it warm. From my bed I watch the rainstorm come in. It’s like this I know it’s time to let myself disappear into summer, to lie back for the rush of the new—