My wife and I don't feel like going to a big 4th of July celebration this year. So, we're happy when our neighbors tell us about their impromptu potluck block party―hamburgers, potato salad, chips, BYOB. While we eat and talk and drink on a driveway, three dogs also amuse themselves, especially one named Molly who is training me to let her chase down a tennis ball I toss across several dewy lawns. Molly returns it to my free hand over and over, covered in more and more coats of slobber. Adventurous, younger neighbors in surrounding cul de sacs shoot off cheap, loud fireworks most of the evening. After bribing Molly with a table scrap, I sit down to nurse a beer and, when the conversation or the mosquitoes get too personal, try lighting with dry kindling the damp pine someone has left in a metal fire pit.

brimstone in the breeze . . .
talk of surgery and debtors
under the stars