In Lowes

clutched the steering wheel of his brand new red pickup truck. I knew he wanted to say something to me, but he didn't know what. My dad is a man of few words. He says I talk way too much and should stay home and keep my mama company, since we both like to talk so much. My mama always has something to say. Yet even she couldn't say a word as I stood there in front of Simmons Gas Station and cried like a baby. The old building crumbled to the ground like the last remainder of what a small community should be. Something in our community was being taken away, and I knew it as the dust settled and crowds of people walked back toward their hollers in disbelief. Then Pa Beattie, who had sat with Purvis and Willard on those wooden benches out front for thirty years, pronounced to us all what we already knew. "Times sure are changing." In Lowes For Jamie Lynn A field of green sod waits to be divided and relocated. A tractor tills the field until worms are on top. Weeds shoot out in directions and patterns like a Pollack. Shelby—my cat—eats on some animal not quick enough to escape her. A hummingbird is hung up in my screen door. The bends in the road disappear with a lowering sun. I watch this from a window that overlooks the kitchen sink and raise the inner pane to hear what I see. Benny Garrison's girls playing around the turn, Crickets rubbing their hind legs, The tractor gradually fading away. Shelby is carrying what remains in her mouth to the field. The hummingbird has freed itself. An orange glow is all that remains of the moment. That, And the sod which I can no longer see. —Michael J. Croley 59 ...