A Slanted Notch

Slipped out under the screen door gap to see what noon had cooked up along the asphalt. Down by the storm drain curb, a worker had sprayed a fresh fluorescent magenta arrow pointing straight into the gutter. Right in the grit sat an unbroken, chalk-white plastic golf tee. No hurry at all. I picked up the tee with both padded hands, took an unhurried beat to eye the geometry, and wedged its tapered point directly into an asphalt fissure right where the arrow's head branched. It stood upright at an exact sixty-degree tilt, slicing a pale bone-clean diagonal across that neon glare. I kicked my heels out against the warm curb stone, entirely content letting the two lines balance.