DEMI DEMIRKOL
Advice From the Old Lady’s Porch Rocking Chair
“When I had bees swarming in my hair, you were afraid to touch me. Now, though, I only have bees in my hair.” -Marie Harris When August comes hurling in, she comes bearing heat you can taste on the tip of your tongue.
In southern summers, The mosquitoes come in packs of twenty. The wasps come in packs of twenty. The bees come in packs of twenty.
Your two front teeth tug a cigarette from the pack before the craving kicks in. The first smoke is always hardest to pry out, the way the ground makes earthquakes just by pulling away.
In the ashes, you see the men in your life tumble into an aftermath, leave you scrawling numbers onto your palm trying to calculate the moment the foundation split open.
For the sake of time, the foundation split open when the roof, the walls, the hardwooden floor was no longer worth holding up.
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