In Favor of Lightning

How It Begins

How It Begins Someone yells "fuck you," from a car window. The car peels down the road, its motor dragging behind. Maybe this is how each month should begin, with a conclusive "fuck you" from an open window. It occurs to me to put down the can of tuna and to pick up the distance between myself and that kid whose face is pressed against the wind, whose hair flies like sparks from his flung cigarette. Sometimes it's the radio that's obscene. Two kids are sunbathing on a rooftop. You can't blame them for how their glowing bodies deflect, or for their songs pumped into the sky in the background: everything metallic down to their skin and the waves the heat makes and the waves from the music's far pulse and the grass as content as light inside a grape. It may as well belong too. And that cloud, a blast of color at its rim. 45 Give them the cloud. Give them the whole month of March if they want it. It's only the distance between myself and fuck you to a time when my mother used to say, "Music? It sounds like a sick dog whimpering," when I knew it was the sound of love driving through its prime and you had to be there to appreciate it— right inside the car, your hair on fire at its edge, keeping time for everyone else who was tired of it. Otherwise you had to be the one watching them cruise your neighborhood, knowing they were headed for a beach, seeing their car burst into flames at the edge of your town, without you. Without you. 46 ...