How To Spend a Summer

The first inevitability of summer is that your fingertips will never be clean They will at all times be covered in fruit juices strawberries first, then cherries, watermelon, peaches, blueberries, blackberries pears and plums if you’re lucky The only way to cleanse them is to jump in a lake, sometimes a river without pretense, whole body at once in a way that is sure to get water up your nose, really it’s unavoidable But a fair trade for clean hands and conscience The second inevitability of summer is that it never has the same number of days as the calendar shows Therefore, children have conspired amongst themselves to steal back handfuls at a time from the night to counterbalance I’ve done it once or twice myself Old habits don’t seem to die for me they just get harder to cover up what with the sticky fingers and all