A Postcard From Belle
Dear Thisbe,
Not to worry, no bruises here! The sky is swimmy and we hang out on rooftops all day. Down below, adults continue with their goopy-goop lives. There goes a woman in a plaid skirt, her cockapoo wearing a matching plaid collar. There a man sells yams from a cart, his corduroy hat pulled low on his brow. But up here our only duty is to linger. Each rooftop is its own palace of new. The one on which I sit as I write is filled with salt and pepper shakers, ripe for the tipping. That's what the children here do, tip and right, tip and right, white and black freckles scattering over the smooth black surface of this rooftop. Once an hour a broom descends from cloud #9 to brush it all away and they begin again.
The rooftop beside me is a wading pool filled with red sugar water. Children float in inner tubes and hummingbirds dive and dip around them, trembling the water. One boy has filled his navel with the sweet red punch and now his belly is covered with an emerald blur of plume.
None of the adults looks up from below, mostly they look down further, as though the ground were transparent instead of cold gray stone. A few of the children forget to linger in delight and linger in longing instead, trailing their fingers against the edges of the rooftops or laying on their bellies with their heads hung out over the abyss. This is a sign that the transition is almost upon them. And I bet you can guess what that means!
I send the widest hello and the most saccharine hug,
Belle
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