living beyond a limit
My backyard is stone, save for one thin strip of earth, in which, incredibly, impossibly, two lilac bushes thrive and one hydrangea bush survives. This patch of earth receives little sun, faces north, and it is the lilac bush that is the recipient of the most light that blooms now — heavy, pale purple cones of flowers that I photograph every time I leave my house.
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On Instagram, I view a story of a friend at the hospital, blue mask clad to her face, her eyes wide above the fabric. She has added a poll to the slide: Guess what I’m allergic to!
NOT STOPPING TO TAKE PICTURES OF FLOWERS, I write because I know that she too walks the city where she lives and saves the blooms in her phone’s pockets.
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A water main — a pipe so large several trucks can be driven through it — broke this week in the city in which I live.
Now: a water crisis.