New York City, May 22, 2016

★★★★ Grudgingly, by noon, the clouds permitted some sort of daylight through. Out on Amsterdam it was cool, exactly cool, with no deeper chill and no swelling warmth. Red flowers bloomed on a windowsill six stories up and near the midpoint of a drab apartment building face. In the hot dog place, the speakers were swelling with Bryan Adams’ middle-school-dance vision of consummation. Out on Broadway, through the part-open window of an Impala, Biggie spoke of “Puttin’ five carats in my baby girl ear.” Two men in matching ivory suits rode by in tandem on a Segway, at least one bouquet in hand. The sun continued to slowly intensify. The air was sedative. Somewhere sounds—sirens? motorcycles?—drifted into and out of nap time. The sunset raised subtle pink lowlights on the clouds, brightening into unsubtletly before they faded out again. After that stretch of cloud had gone full purple-gray again, a thick contrail bloomed pink above and behind it. That too went dull and finally a higher, previously invisible or unnoticeable layer of cloud spread smooth pink light across a wide expanse of sky.