Dent de Lion

The next door neighbors are teaching their kids violin and piano, 7 year old twin boys who practice La Marseillaise on Saturday afternoon. On Tuesdays I see their mother shuffling them into the car, all of them dressed in white karate gi tied with belts that are so dark one ought not wear them after Labor Day. Or is that shoes? Something about horizontal stripes, the mixing of navy with black. My father once told me not to compare my insides to somebody else's outsides, but due to poorly defined setbacks our living room window looks directly into their dining room. And what smells like garlic broccoli stir fry wafts in as we eat Scooby Doo shaped macaroni and cheese next to a small glass jar of plucked dandelions with their blithe, trusting shrouds parachuting seeds, because they are her favorite flower. And now mine.