Aftermath

PiperWhat satelse highcan my eyes unsee? No signs, no tells, no warnings.

What more can my ears unhear? Cries for mama. Your voice no longer peals wake up, and your pulse once iambic skip-stopped.

All amiss, gone. A leaving, as in thea sycamorestate watching her house burn. She wasn’t sad about it. of.

AToday, I’m half-miledead west,remembering when the schoolhouseGulf burnedleft aits brighter orange along the horizon like another setting sun. A thin, dark line of clouds pulled taut between the two balls of flame, near and far.

The tender skin of her legs slid along the cool, smooth bark of the straddled limb as she turned toward the growing dark. The tiny post office, Pop’s General Store, a dozen homes sprinkled between the highway and Village Creek—all gonebody to fire and ash. Katydids that hadn’t burned, warbled out an evening call, and left behind lightning bugs ventured out into the smoky dusk, flickering questions. Piper shoved her hand into the leather satchel slung across her back and pulled out an old rosewood recorder that had belonged to her mother’s mother’s mother. She played “Greensleeves”come for theours.