Summer things

The boy has outgrown the old two-wheeler he learned to ride on, legs splay, pumping knees just miss the handlebars wobbling side to side, a wind tossed dingy flying down the street.

He’s wearing his city clothes, long sleeved shirt and intact blue jeans; he may have even combed his hair this morning before he left home. He has the unmistakable look of a new arrival, street shoes at the shore, coins in his pocket bearing the wrong king.

His mother and father are still unpacking the car, storing storm windows, swiping spider webs from the walls but he was three minutes in the stuffy basement and out the door peddling with all his heart, through summers passed to summer come again at last.