Swirling

The swallows are circling as if they know something, as if they have a point to make. But we lie lazily in the grass, contemplating them without paying any real attention. It’s hot, which saps our energy. And anyway, if we had any energy to spare, we’d use it to make sense of this conversation swirling around us, rather than those swallows in the sky. That much is evident. Well, tell me then, she persists, give me a concrete example. This must be my number one hated sentence in the world, which she should know by now but either doesn’t or chooses to ignore. She scrapes her hair off her face into what could become a pony tail if she’d remembered to bring an elastic. But it didn’t look as if it would get this hot when we set out, still full of optimism. So she didn’t, I suppose. Look at those swallows, I say, deciding to make use of them after all. They’re really something, aren’t they? But she’s not interested.