New York City, June 6, 2016

★★★★★ The clean light that had leaked in at sunset was all the light now. Sun hit the shoulders of an ironed pink dress shirt like silver epaulets. Eyes cast down at the metal subway stair treads were forced back up by the glare there. No shady side of a cross street was to be found in the late morning, just a narrow band of shadow under the faces of the buildings on either side, bumpy with the shape of the cornices far overhead. Once the sun was past its peak, though, the shade filled in, deep and blissful. People sat outside, separately and in identical posture, looking at their phones. An errand deferred more than a week was easy to run; it was not too hot to lug the resulting parcel home. Enough gray clouds crossed the late sky, with maybe a single drop of rain, to make it impossible to take the brightness before or after for granted.