Southampton Late Afternoon

I’m sitting in the back yard, drinking white wine that’s too sweet in a surprisingly good way, eating shrimp rich with the fresh musk of sea, finishing-ish my post for The Paris Review. Kylie’s in the garden clipping and preparing the hydrangeas for their new lives inside the house, vibrant cotton-candy-blue orbs martyred for the beautifying of our domesticity. The mussels and clams go on the stove in an hour. The descending sun’s light is sleepily shattered by tree branches. I briefly run away from a bee, then accept its treaty. A white spider climbs up the air and into one the flowers Kylie’s placed at the table. I’m jealous of its eight-eyed perspective (as if things could get any more kaleidoscopic) and access to maybe the best place to build a hammock. I never want to wear shoes again, and when the sun suddenly blinds me I don’t so much mind.