Birthday Song

[Just a little snippet about the birthday picnic--alex, the lemonade part is EFY--thanks for the idea :)]

On the banks of the Potomac with touch football kids rowdying the grass, sheets of humid air hang from the clouds. Fireflies, all tenacious biolumen, rise from the ground and flash semaphores. We huddle around Adam who pulls a white ball from the bocce bag and arcs it away from the picnic blanket. The pallino smalls against the pale summer sky, nosedives, then lands with an unassuming thunk. Too-tall grass hides it from view and we make exaggerated shows of strong arming each bowl into line. When all six are thrown, we swarm like kids at a soccer game. The measuring tape spools out of its compact—white vinyl and black ticking mediates disputed distance. The pallino goes flying again. Kids shout and the lemonade sun sinks deeper and deeper into the firefly-flecked earth.