Dive

You are back at your bar, back at your table in the corner, back to the bartender who pours your drink without asking and tells you about his weekend with just the right level of familiarity. It makes you feel like New York is coming back, and you are ready to welcome it with open arms. (You thought you were before, but you were not. You were fooling yourself, but it only became clear in hindsight.) 

A couple at the bar are going through the motions of an early days date, listing names and ages and gossip. We hate Brian, she says, waving the empanada she brought into the restaurant because I know you don't serve food here right? Tbe man shifts in his seat. Well then I hate Brian, too, he says, but he didn't have to. She wasn't waiting for it. 

I went for a run along the river today, warm sunshine, short sleeves, benches full of holiday revelers. A tiny patch of yellow croci broke through behind a tree, beaming into the afternoon. For a while, for a winter, for a pandemic depression there was nothing, only ice, and now there is a trickle. Now there is a thaw. 

Soon, there will be an entire
fucking
flood.