The blacktop shines and glistens like glass or polished coal – maybe ice. This street dark mirror reflects streetlight and stoplight and headlight glow, yet still black and deep as an abyss. The parking lot of the Panda Express is full. Cars shuffle in and out. “Martha My Dear” plays on the stereo.

Wood smoke scents the morning air. Someone is up early with the fire going. I breath deeply as if unlocking a memory primeval and pleasant. The day is stitched together with anticipation, a winter storm moving in (or maybe not). I want to get things in order, nest, maybe light a fire.

I can never make out Orion, but I recognize his belt. I’m not sure if the dipper is big or little. Somewhere there’s a W for Cassiopeia, and I know the dipper’s handle will arc towards Arcturus.  In the crisp winter air, memories of college astronomy float back to me like stardust.

Fresh snow half-squeaks, half-crunches underfoot. There ought to be a word for that creaking snowy sound. It’s that type of snow, pillowy looking but dense. Good snowball making snow.  This morning, it sticks to everything: every branch and every branch of a branch. The rest of the world feels dampened but bright.

Muted sun mixes with winter grays. A morning chill lingers in the lungs. Out past the line of trees near the slate blue house, a pair of squirrels bob and weave through a carpet of pine needles and fallen leaves. They race up a crooked tree. Watching, my coffee is getting cold.   

Through the passenger-side window, the couple in the gold Cadillac hands me a Ziploc baggie of dog treats. They tell me about block parties scheduled for June and we talk about the weather. Only later do I think how this might have looked to a concerned neighbor peering from behind the blinds.

Strong winds rattle a panel of corrugated steel stored on the side of my neighbor’s shed. It lifts and settles, lifts and settles. The trash cans have been tipped over, flags flap and snap. A child’s chair, bright blue and plastic, tumbles tumbles across a yard. The day fills with minor disruptions.

This liver of a sky and the rains it brings regrows every day – our punishment for two days of stolen fire sunlight long receded. Welcome to the hours of diminishment. Hours that feel like a waiting line at the DMV in a strip mall off a highway in New Jersey. Institutionally dull.

The blood oranges, shrunken and hardened in the blue bowl, don’t ask for my attention. They don’t shrink from my gaze. They don’t fake displays of modesty in their aging. It’s as if they’re resigned to whatever comes next. They’re souring on the inside.  Nearby, a bag of mandarins shines in waiting.

This deserves more than fifty-two words. I met a disturbed woman and her friend at the bar. We talked. At times, she thought she was being excluded from the conversation – believed I was talking to the friend because he’s a black man and she’s easily ignored. More than once, she mentioned suicide.