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Kumquat Summer

March 1, 2021 By Brooke Parry Castro

Kumquat Summer

We spend the summer picking kumquats from neighbors’ trees, all bare feet and little girl giggles and sun-bleached hair. We eat the kumquats peel and all (the sweetest part) and leave no trace except sticky fingers and a neighborhood of bare Nagami trees. Sometimes the senile woman raps on her window. Sometimes we give her the finger. She could never run as fast as us. Never in a million years.

When we’re full we sit on the sidewalk and flip figeater beetles on their backs and watch their iridescent bellies shimmer in the sun like broken glass. Green gems. Fish scales. (Sometimes we crunch them under our heels, like fortune cookies).

Anhingas dry their feathers at the foot of the retention pond, birds made of oil and serpentine necks. Once we watched a devil bird drag a fish through the sky, water falling, feathers scathed by Florida sun.

The sky burns at six and goes gray at seven. Mosquitos come at eight, knuckle-sized and thirsty. They’re worse near the water so we try to stay away.

Down the street we play games with older kids. They tell us to fill their buckets with kumquats and not to come back until we’re done. Easy. We sneak through yards and pluck fruit like feathers. We hop through puddles of porch light.

When it’s done the older kids pelt kumquats at windows and cars, at houses hard enough to bruise. Dogs bark. The older kids tell us we better stay put. No moving, we’re watching. They run when front doors swing open.

In the middle of the road, we face the houses and smile.

About Brooke Parry Castro

Brooke Parry Castro is a writer and student at the University of South Florida where she spends most of her time swatting away mosquitos. Her short stories have appeared in White Wall Review, 101 Words, and others. You can find her at www.brookeparry.com

Artist Credit:

Based out of Orlando, Katiana Robles is a multidisciplinary artist who sculpts, paints, and illustrates in a variety of media including some edible ones. Her work has been exhibited throughout Central Florida; most notably at Orlando City Hall, City Arts Factory, and Osceola Arts. To see more of her whimsical work follow her on Instagram @kat_robles.

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