The cross was never wood. It was wanting. Believing tomorrow could argue with now. It can’t. So I walk past the fences, past the yards that still know my name, past the mitten if I have to. Until now is only a word, and you are only who I loved.
I thought I smelled kudzu this morning. Impossible. I only know that smell from the South. Humidity gathered in the light. Warmth rose from the ground. Sunlight found the green things and made them burgeon. For one second the city loosens its grip. There were ditches full of vines. There were roads disappearing under summer. There was that bouquet of wet earth and heat and a country growing too fast to be contained. I stand there with California around me, certain of nothing except the smell.