In the half-light of a rain-soaked summer, 
his mother's hands, callused & gentle, 
steer them to the corner where Lane kisses Crescent. 
The ice cream truck, a pastel mirage, 
hum its sugar-coated lullaby. 
 
She fills her denim purse with coins & dreams, 
each fifty-cent cone a promise 
of sweetness in a bitter world. 
He watches her wipe her chin, 
as if to brush away the weight of memory 
a gesture so small it could be mistaken for tenderness. 
 
She speaks in the language of light, 
translating the emerald dusk into wisdom. 
Look, she says, how the sky bleeds into ocean, 
how the moon hangs like a pearl 
in the throat of night. 
 
On the beach, they trace the geometry of loss 
in the rotted remains of a manta ray, 
its once-sleek body now a relic, 
sculpted by time & salt & sorrow. 
 
He learns to read the world in shades of garnet, 
to find beauty in decay, 
to see how even the diamond-dust sand 
can chafe & wound. 
 
In the space between heartbeats, 
she teaches him to survive.