ALEX SKOROCHID
March 30 Out this evening in the soft dying light; out to the cemetery again with my cheeks stinging from the rise of cool air. Down a side street with little houses and sweet looking college-aged kids playing street hockey and shouting against the coming dark. With smiles they said: ‘hey, you wanna play?’ and ‘yeah, we’ve got lots of sticks.’ And the image was clear to me: playing and shouting until it was too dark, then piling into the warm, stuffy glow of a strange house with its unfamiliar smells and a ragged sofa and talking, just talking, because you didn’t want the day to end— But I told them ‘no’ like a reflex and kept walking, cursing myself, as the dark swallowed the last of the day and the night became truly cold.