Summer cracks the stones in the road, blasts the grass in the fields, presses us flat between the earth and the sky like so many insects in an entomologist’s collection. We sizzle stretched out under trees and gulp air just this side of ignition, our skin dry and crusted with sweat that evaporates faster than it forms. We drink water by the gallon and lick the salt off our palms; we wear loose black clothing and keep our feet to the white lines in the parking lot when we cross it to stand in the arctic air conditioning of the movie theater. They have video games there and though we don’t play them we will stand for hours silent at some silent teenager’s elbow, hands in our pockets and our eyes wise and savvy as he fights M. Bison for the thousandth time or blasts aliens with a bright orange shotgun. When we are ambitious we will walk the two miles to the pool and throw ourselves again and again off the diving boards, let the blue and bleached water pull us down to the bottom where we rest just long enough to bend our knees and rocket back upward to sunshine and summer and a lifeguard yelling at us to get out of the way of the next diver.