The wind-plucked flowers fell from the buckeye trees one by one, parachuting onto the lawn, drifting like petals when they’re wished upon. Like mini-bells tinted in pink champagne, they lay showered along the front steps by the dozens as if tossed after the exchange of vows.

***

I do not hear voices in the distance. I do not smell earth or burning charcoal. It is summer the way it never was — empty aurora, the universe being anatomically off. And too bad about Orion.