I remember the day the heat the mind's eye beating against sidewalks
people moving arms & legs w faces pressed against stone
and motor oil seeping   heartbeats
gashes on the face of a noonday sun blasting
their sinews
their frailties
their pulses.

The streets are still gray and dirty from winter, but we're standing at the very edge of spring and an explosion is coming.

They say the first cut is the deepest, but that was a year ago: our first kid moving out of our house. Two of them did, in fact, both studying in other towns too far to commute. But this move, this year, is different: Jacob's back in Montreal, but not with us—he has his own place now, an empty apartment, a space for which he can draw the blueprints. With friends nearby, the pulsing beat of the city, police sirens and traffic and bars and summer fests. Real life. They lucked out, him and his cousin, finding this spot in a tough market, in a coveted neighbourhood.

Closer to home, but that much further away.
Clean slate.