“Be Smooth” by Kevin Dublin

Be easy. No—Be smooth enough that you don’t have to be as hard as a four-year-old saying “hydrangeas” is what he’d say. He said it as slick as an ice cube sliding on itself or as a puck coasting toward goal. Maybe that’s what made him a Boston weed man, or maybe being a weed man made him say it, but either way I’m sure he’d be happier in California. His cousin told him that once but warned him it was hot as fresh tar. Though he would never leave his daughter, so it didn’t matter, but he loved it cold. Or rather, he loved bundling up, or was it he just loved shopping for clothes. In other words, he was a fashionista or ghetto fashionisto if there were such things. There are such things. Last we spoke, he had bought $400 sunglasses just because he liked the new brand Rascal—or was it he liked the new brand Rascal because they charged $400 for sunglasses? Last I saw him was at the beach. His brown skin glistening with purple orange sunset, sand, and smile. He said, Be smooth—backed heel first into the ocean.

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