For the Gunman, and for Peter Rachel Needham
I. SMOKE On Sunday, goldenrod is trampled and a hay baler rolls fat copper circles on the hillside. Their shadows dusky creep nearly all the way, all the way to next week. The dinner bell chimes once, supper is ready. If I were you there would be an empty seat at the table. Afterwards I scrub my skin and scrub with the window open. A lightning bug lands upon the soap suds, aglow, and drowns there. In the pool of my hands, its little green flame goes out. I think of you now, socks pulled high, watching a horse burn in a pasture. II. HEAT My mother and her mother shrieked so loudly I thought the plates would break. On tiptoe I stole into the freezer for an ice cream. I would eat it behind the banister and look out. That heat is stifling summer, makes your ears ring. And there was no air conditioning. Nothing to cool the tempers of brassy women, and it was humid in that house, it was humid.
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blue moon