A young girl pays for her five-dollar banana bread in dimes and nickels only, and gets her sister to check her math when she's done. The head baker tells me to throw away the burnt slice into the compost. "La basura. Tíralo." But when his back turns, I rescue it, the wings of a white paper towel concealing the sin, disappearing then lifting the cake from the grave of coffee grounds. When I turn it to face me that night, the inside is not burnt at all—bright yellow, wet with b

July 30 I make cake-pops for the first time. I upturn a delicious loaf of chocolate banana bread into a bowl, mash it with my hands until it resembles play-dough, then roll the moosh between my palms, pressing and rolling evenly, until little dark planets form in my hands. The young girl I'm doing this with is eleven. She wants to crack the eggs into the batter, enjoys watching the slime crawl down the metal bowl's sides so much that I tell her put in three, even though the

When I woke up, I thought it was still July. I thought I was at the bottom of the month's drawer, reaching for a few more things. But it's August now, and I'm at the top of the days again. I'm dizzy from the switch, and I have this feeling I forgot something, someone, but have no time to check. No way to go back. . . . I thought a twig was brushing my forehead in the pool, a tree's hair falling in my face, but it was just my own, thick and stick-like when wet. (Or maybe it w