The Hottest Summer on Record

At the pool I watch the dive team competing, children in sleek suits of blue and gold. They go on in rhythm—each called by name, the brace, the bend, the riot of limbs, then the tight splash of their disappearance. Judges hold up scorecards: 3; 3 and a half; 4. There is clapping and cheering, and I am under the thin leaves of a Tree of Heaven, which, vigorous, thrives in the heat. In another plastic chair, beneath a striped umbrella, I see A., who months ago traveled over five thousand miles from Philadelphia to the Erez crossing, heaving a sack of flour in her arms, only to be arrested as she tried to reach Gaza. That was the point: trying.             A.’s child goes to Hebrew school with my children and readies themself now, on the diving board. I think about the index, how it feels like 102 when it is simply 96, based on where we are standing, if pavement, if humidity, if breeze. I wish for a system like this to measure suffering, and then suffering’s reach. Maybe symbols are a language I can’t give up on. Maybe, by writing poems, I readjust the burden on my back, pressing across a border otherwise closed. A dive is risk and precision and disturbance. This tree I’m telling you about is known for invasion. Home again, the girls fling their wet bathing suits on the stairs and I, as if towards heaven, lift them onto the line, with pins.