Back home in the Tar Heel State, April is an itchy thing. Pine pollen hangs like smoke plumes, clinging to everything without a material shape of its own. It’s nuclear-yellow fallout destabilizing the rhythms of Carolina life. The goal becomes evasion: porch furniture mutated into garage-bound patios, cracked windows into an Allegra armageddon, shoes into golden powder with each stride. It’s my dad’s indelicate toss of flour across biscuit dough on the counter — bristly, scratchy. The pollen torrent roars silent as judgement, the trees’ interminable perfume pumps ejecting clouds with callous determination. You don’t breathe it so much as wear it. You come home and cough it up. You wipe your eyes and still can’t see straight. The pollen is a particulate veil. Not just a nuisance, but a theological event — like incense offered for no one in particular, clouding a sky that should be clear.
April 25, 2025
