Some Butterflies Somewhere

At mile five, the sun sets over New Jersey. The city swims in an orange glow, perfect summer evening the park is full. I stop to take a picture, long enough to hear my screaming muscles. By mile seven, twilight lands on the Staten island ferry, by eight and a half there’s a cool breeze over the Brooklyn bridges and you try not to remember how tired your legs, how unmoored your heart. At mile ten I land on a smooth, flat rock in the dark, an old Chinese woman next to me stretching noncommittally. The east river tears up a show of splashing waves and deep green turmoil, how desperately I long to feel the ocean around me again. When I stand again, my legs have all but forgotten how to move, how to stretch and contract, how to want anything. But my mind is clear, the incessant chatter silent.

Perfect summer evening in New York. We are alive. That is all. That is everything.