Emerge Literary Journal, Issue Three

Richard Luftig Water Tower There’s white paint on top proclaiming the date of this year’s senior class, and someone has written “Gina Forever” a love which might last that long or until September whichever comes first.

From the highest rung, (if the vertigo doesn’t get you), one can see the plat of the town; streets with tree names running north and south, those of presidents, east and west, and there, further out to the crest of the flat fields where weeds poke through long rows of soybeans, a two-lane ribbon county road leads to some other place, some other story, one filled with shadow and cadence, leaving what’s left of this town and its shuttered-up storefronts to fend for themselves.