Romantics

Rain may fall in Bethlehem. Onto the noisy streets, rain may fall as if from buckets and window sills, sinking through curtains and wet paisley stitches. People here are splayed and charading like starfish - they may as well reach their arms to the sky and scream, holler, cry, "I am open!" But most seem reserved. Here is a boy with his legs kicked over a table, lost in his book. Here is a man and his son, boy in arms, with a blue plastic ball between small fingers. Here is a basset hound and a man who sneezes.

The sky is oyster shell blue, thick and milky like the inside. Ants swarm at my feet, marching over bits of candy. Crumbs, pavement, cigarette ash. I imagine them climbing my feet and washing away with rainfall. The boy on his bike, book in the crook of his arm, pedals around a corner and is gone.