Summer Days

    Summer days smell of chlorine and sunscreen, of drying off in the sun on a thin towel, feeling the concrete underneath like a sweater fresh from the dryer. Summer days look like pools of blue, wrinkled thinly with white webbing that dances surreally against the depths; tangy water with bite that burns eyes and wraps with chemical warmth: these are summer days.

 

    There’s a boy, breezy-wind-whipped, in a chime tinkling tree. There’s a bottomless pit in a makeshift sandbox, a flimsy fort of sheets and clothespins dancing over the Florida clay. There’s a boy on his back in the sand, clouds and sun playing shadowy tricks on his face. The crystals sleepily shine and his hair tangos with the wind. There’s a screen door and ice-cream-truck cartoon noises filtering through ceiling fans that wave rhythmically.

 

    Summer days never seem to pass.

 

    There’s a knotted old tree missing a branch, missing his branch, missing him. There’s a sandbox full of festering weeds and lost toys that protrude from the deserted earth like Ozymandias epitaphs. There’s an ugly bubbling pool, splotchy and dehydrated. There’s a car alarm sounding and a sound-proof, air-tight sliding glass door newly affixed. There’s a white sheet weakly waving on a laundry line as the sun sets.

 

    The wind dies.

 

    There is no sound.

 

    Eventually we all sleep as if we had spent our whole lives treading water.