New York City, July 16, 2015

★★★★★ A happy exclamation of a morning: Cool! Dry! Bright! Little whitecaps flipped over on the Hudson. A reek of solvent pervaded the block where a crew was shining the brass canopy of a Trump building — until the moment one passed upwind of the doorway, when it was utterly gone. The breeze pawed at clothes with the avidity of a lover too long away returning. Leaves ruffled and flashed like ball-gown sequins. The relief was slow to reach the stifling depths of the subway platform, but by afternoon it had gotten there. Fresh air and the pulse of a helicopter carried through the open apartment window. The colors in the distance were sharpened and intensified. Only Times Square station, irredeemable, still sweltered in the night.