New York City, July 29, 2013

★★★★ The sky was a promising clear blue; sunlight chrome-plated the trees and the bulge of a belly in its leather or synthetic maternity dress. The sun cooked things a little where it got though the shade on 3rd Street, and got hotter still in the open on Houston. A mourning dove lay dead at the top of the fire escape at the office, with a little spot of blood on the mat under its beak thickening in the sun. By afternoon, the air had dried out and the sun had nothing to hold onto. Now the breezes bridged the patches of shade, making for easy walking. Teens with iPhones swarmed a locked store, trying to see a pop star shopping privately inside. The new asphalt at Columbus and Broadway was soft and scented. Late light flashed off the usually invisible joints between floors on the next apartment building, and lit up sails on the Hudson.