The June I was eight I sat under a kumquat tree. Unsettled evening swept a big, unfamiliar sky. I was far from home, white house, perpetually extinguished lamppost, frost-gutted bricks, windows specked with soot. Here the little vans seemed to cave in under the force of the night heat. And during the day, molten plastic seats fierce against my browning calves. This far from home, I felt my wrist often, watched the little blue bead of vein, and my sisters' lips as they bickered and sang. A black bird whooped and sank its beak into a kumquat. Out in the blue salt night paws speeded up, stilled.