THE QUIET CENTER OF THINGS
It was the evening after the mayor’s cat gave birth and her daughter’s best friend skinned both knees. The day’s rain debated draining but decided to stay and watch the sunset from its place, in the gutter. Light fell through front fence slats onto cherry tomatoes in gardens and the windshields of parked cars waiting in paved driveways like house pets, for the whole family. It was the kind of light which makes you think, walking through town, I could stay here forever, though by the time you finished thinking you’d be at the other edge of it, which makes you think, I could stay here forever is a thought we probably have thanks to mothers, like it is almost time for dinner and I want my mother. The air was becoming an estuary of sodden pavement and sautéed garlic smells the mayor’s daughter breathed in from the front porch of a blue house, yes, on State Street, where she sat reading a book about the applications of infinity. She could have made wishes on the couple of stars which had come into sight in the clear sky but she just sat and read. Though at some point her phone rang and I heard her pick it up and say, Yes, why do we call them skinned knees if it’s the skin that goes away?