We need to calm his cough.”
I push my feet into shoes,
donning yesterday’s jeans and a rumpled shirt,
and do as she asks.
In Cypress Beach,
early mornings are still and peaceful.
I breeze through the market,
where I choose local honey,
thick and amber in its jar,
and a generous sprig of peppermint.
They are nature’s cure
for the grating-grinding-retching
that lives in Baba’s chest.
I pay, hurriedly.
Clutching my bag,
I return to the sidewalk.
I have only just passed the bakery,
and the sun is only just beginning to rise,
when I am cuffed from behind,
a wallop that pitches me forward,
tangling my feet and my wits.
My bag plummets to the ground and,
while everything else is abruptly
jumbled,
muddled,
blurred,
so clearly, I hear the honey jar
shatter on impact.
My hands break my fall,
saving my face from striking the sidewalk.
