The trees should have withered months ago, but everything is too green. I walk the dog past a magnolia on our morning route and find one last leaf still attached to its branch. I tell the dog to growl at it, as if she can intimidate the leaf into a timely death. As if this can fix an eighty-degree day in November, or last week’s brushfire in the middle of Prospect Park. The dog pisses on a mess of roots and blinks past me with whale eyes. I follow her gaze to the branches and see them: buds. Magnolia buds. Creamy white and six months early, premature mouths gulping the air.