A Summer Evening

It's almost 7PM. Silas sits at the table crunching apples with cinnamon. He is tired from swimming, his eyes just pink around the rims from chlorine, his hair drying every which way. He looks like summer. Tomorrow I'm helping with a party, so tonight I bake. I'm standing in the kitchen, the computer half on a cookie sheet, my 1982 oven clicking as it does whenever it's on. A pan of sauteed zucchini rests on the stove. I'm waiting for a loaf of morning glory bread to finish baking and for frozen butter to soften for a plum tart crust.

The kitchen, the cooling evening air through the window, Ben's voice in the other room reading to Silas, little Eden tucked into bed while the sky's still brilliantly light, a bowl of plums on the counter, my skin dry from sun and swimming -- this is July.