Summer

Cosmos about to bloom. I can see the tall stems from here.

A man in front of me at Market Basket tells me how to properly unload my cart. There's a right way. And a wrong.

Baby starts screaming, I take her out and a kid offers to walk my cart to the car. "At least you have a car," he says. "Mine got taken when my girlfriend smashed the headlights in with a baseball bat. Someone called the police. It got impounded and sold at auction for $300. I put almost 15 grand into it."

Baby in the car. Asleep. Listening to our leader drone on and side step, not looking any of us in the eyes.

I think about basil from the garden, fresh pesto last night for supper, the way the warmth of toasted pinenuts brings out the sweet, spicy smell of basil, garlic on the tip of my tongue this morning.

Summer makes me take notice, the way the light is long and drawn out, how sounds sit at the tip of the ear, the way sea-salt air is here. And there. And then gone.