Tuesday, 8am
I launch myself into it. Only by the witness of the stoop sitting, heavy woman dressed in black do I recognize the entitlement of my stride down the middle of the road, letting myself be arched and celebrated, saying my prayers to the green overhang. There are bees in the mimosas, some sweetness where I see only leaves. A fly on the walk the size of a walnut. In response to the rote yellow "Thank you Jesus" yard sign, I want to sing out: "Thank you Oak Trees! Thank you Soil!" The neck of a broken bottle stops me, just the sight of its brown gleaming in the weeds. I have no wish to give offense. I dip and I climb, unseen after that first encounter. The hoots of old folks just on the safe side of an almost wheelchair escapade, the steep seduction of incline running giddy through them. Grey fragments of spaceship. The grin of a plastic man with socket feet and hinged hips I rescue from the gutter. The dead rest in rows, tidy as an orphan's dormitory, so little disturbed by outside attentions.