within the richness of Florence, one still works to see

It is this easy. No one sees me run—past the face of the cathedral, past the cloister gate, the library, the gelato shop, toward the river—where it’s all plaid jackets and brown overcoats, shiny scarves, the big head of a long dog, a wheelbarrow sending up clouds of plaster smoke. When I reach the river wall, the boy is nowhere and the crowd is against me, the whacking tail of that dog, and beneath the trample of them all, the crumpled face of a sunflower.