Of a warm evening

...one escapes the apartment that becomes a hot box on the top floor, and walks to the water, hoping for the relief that they say comes with rivers, and bays.

Below the Promenade, the heeled-in trees waiting for the Brooklyn Bridge Park to progress are suddenly identified in white bloom: June berries, service berries, shad. Amelanchier. The walkway is crowded with old and young and gay and straight and white and black and pale brown, with Arabs and Jews and...us. We are looking at the view, all of us, and many stop to smell the two huge viburnum in bloom.

Down the hill to the Fulton Landing and the frosted pears glow in the twilight. The air is dusty with blossoms.

We eat our chicken and escarole salad and sip cold, recession-proof Prosecco. And watch the old water move heavily by. The best show we can think of. The lights, the boats, the ferry's horn, the pairs of cormorants overhead.