In my dream, it is hot and damp, summer in Pittsburgh… I see the old green couch, broken down by years of roughhousing children, and there is Joe, 9 years old in a set of red and black stripped footie pajamas, cereal bowl in his lap, a bit of garishly colored milk still in the bottom. He is intent on a Yosemite Sam. I walk up from behind, lean over and kiss the top of his sleep rumpled head. The smell, a bit of summer sweat, sweet remnant of shampoo, and that earthen honey that was his alone.
