New York City, March 25, 2013

★ Trash blew in a flat loop two or three feet off the ground, occasionally dipping to skim the pavement. Grit flew at the eyes. The snowflakes could be felt at the top of the subway steps several seconds before they came into focus. A little girl pulled her scarf up over her nose, then her eyes, leaning blindly into the woman she was walking with. The snow went over to a fine, unappealing rain, under summery-looking uneven gray clouds. A man in a fitted tan jacket walked under an umbrella, close beside a man in a fitted quilted blue jacket with water puddling on the shoulders. Down in the Columbus Circle station, the air was damp; a man played trumpet into a copper mute, with an irregular wet splotch on the platform where the spit valve had drained. The glow from the sky that fell on the rails of the 1 train was the color of mercury vapor lamplight.