New York City, September 4, 2012

[No stars] The tattered, bloated remnants of someone else’s weather. The hurricane was no longer a news item or an alarming form on the satellite photo, but a soggy influence. Stepping outside was suffocating, the feeling of putting previously worn socks back on after going barefoot. On the schoolyard playground, the fountain sprayed water upward and inward, ceaselessly splashing onto an inlaid map of the United States. Showers later on were inevitable and no more interesting than the rest of it.