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I sit beneath the shadiest tree in P____ R____ Park. The oak canopy reaching twenty metres in diameter. Full leaf boughs ornamented with noisy parakeets.

I'm dressed all in black despite the sun.

Across the lawn three generations of friends and family chatter in contact fusion. Barbecuing beef and catfish in sticky brown glazes. Everyone marinating together in the fragrant smoke.

I watch as X____ stretches her arms around the two-hundred-year-thick trunk. Enveloping as much of the knotted stem as she can.

Blackberry lips reflected in the fridge-freezer section. Our something at first sight superimposed over a packet of tofu. A dozen oranges tumbling down the market aisle. A tributary of citrus orbs confluxing with a delicate phalanx of phalanges. The performance of her femur and pelvis in orchestration with these appendages. Bending and scooping. Flexing. Extending. Rotating. The fruits passed in sleight from hand to hand.

Steam rises from the dewy skirts around the burst of ornamental beds. Azalea, magnolia, rhododendron.

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