July MMXXII
A solitary rocket pierces the dimming sky. It bursts forth into diatomaceous star formation, melts into the wind of the upper air, oxidized sulfur carried through dense walkable neighborhoods, mixed commercial and residential, desired and becoming more desirable. Real estate will appreciate; it must appreciate, regardless of general sentiment, major events notwithstanding. The rocket is solitary. Small dogs and infants, the generally neurotic—women excepted—sleep for once less generally troubled. There have been far fewer salvos of patriotic color, far fewer this year, though not from any public safety measure; the bans and prohibitions have fallen on a different quarter. Rainfall has been optimal. The grass retains its luster. Rose and daphne flare into evening, lupin and foxglove, their own colors in their own manner, but also to dim and brown as the month enlarges, as it wilts.
From an open window, the broadcast news is broadcast onto the street, onto the railed pedestrian throughways, along mixed-use storefronts, along market-rate and subsidized housing—available to qualified applicants—in this desired and desirable dense walkable neighborhood, making strides for the its low-to-middle-income residents, its neurotics, its small quadrupeds, except for the occasional rocket, which, like the flowers, colors the earth, colors the upper air, colors patriotically or botanically, colors regardless, in any case, of general sentiment.
