The road ban notices went up sometime last week, forcing the low howl of 18 wheels down my way. And after them will come the gravel trucks, back and forth, back and forth; always another load, another job, all summer long. But for now it’s just the drone of 18 wheels slowly shifting their bulk
The copper (or whatever they’re made of these days) glints in the noonday sun, pulling my attention away from other, less sparkling thoughts. I stop and stare for a moment, deciphering and distinguishing, quickly executing my singular health ritual of always assessing worth versus possible back injury. When recognition finally dawns, my feet are already
I watched it through the blue-green bar of my upper windshield while waiting for the light to change. It was a Monday. I sensed before it even happened that this pneuma of summer, this once giver of shade and refuge would surrender its instinctive stronghold right then and there while I sat mesmerized, solitary witness
They bake a cake every year and we celebrate you. They know your name and they know how old you would have been this year. They don’t know about the aching that creeps into my arms in the night still. After all this time. And they don’t know about your small box of things –
Though it looks so different it still feels like home to me where you and I used to play, getting lost in our imagination day after day while mother worried. And John there with us, talking of friends getting shot in the leg, the marsh fire (claiming he wasn’t there that day), and the
I remember the dress, red and white and swollen with expectant child. I remember the bench, ordinary meaningless bench, but I remember its rough nothingness like yesterday and how I kicked at the stones, afraid to look into the eyes of goodbye. I remember the river, sad twinkling past in easy rhythm always coming… always
