On the sixth day, my curls came back.

Two men smoke cigarettes in the rain,

they trace their breath.

I remember how I felt yesterday but not today.

On the freeway, everyone lurched.

Everyone was late to work.

Crystal Island is painted gray,

it’s corporate,

massage prices are up to 19.99.

Everything’s tagged and tethered:

two brando cars,

a yellow rose bush,

a tub of CoffeeMate.

Somebody’s collecting rain.

I don’t walk around the neighborhood anymore,

it’s too empty.

People are more afraid.

People are driving vans into warehouses,

they want weed and money and cars.

I walk home with my hands choked around my keys.

Neighbors hang wet clothes over the fence.

I forget about my sanctuaries.

The alarm goes off.

We filed in one by one to the restaurant beside the Laney College lots, where the cooking school

wheeled out cheap creations for half price. “Do you remember Ben, from Oakland

Undercurrents?” Bernadette asked Ami and me as we sat with our thighs stuck to maroon booths.

“He's a child molester,” she said, as she stirred her fogged-up cup of ice and Coca-Cola. We

turned to each other, not aware of this swim team, only the out-stretched blue of one-piece suits

with pills of polyester, where we changed in supply closets among foam boards and powder for

our caps.

With wet skin, we watched beauty school students roll by with suitcases filled with curlers,

plastic heads tucked under their arms. The curved lip of the pool dipped into lines that made our

little bellies crawl, and we’d hurl out of the water to settle upon the warm parts of concrete,

outlines of hips and bones like disappearing chalk.

Too bad those lessons couldn’t stay sweet like crooked somersaults, like Ami asking me home

for dinner, and Bernadette nodding Sure, a few more kick-turns till gates interlock, like summer’s

done for the day.