Accounted For

Little Homeland Sketch

64 Little Homeland Sketch A cul de sac curves behind her head, flimsy sun lighting the roots of eyelashes. Saturday tires tread by on gravel going north. With red tulip toenails to the floor she hums a little, holds the speedometer needle at forty. She’s arrived in a lurch, and out of gear. Her boyfriend, looking away from the too happy hands waving at him like windshield wipers in the early light, continues to sit at a t.v. table, a mound of almonds and the usual ‘double scotch with a splash’ in his mug. She looks through the bay window at a weatherwoman pointing her wand at clouds in HD on the screen. He surfs the channels for something more oblique, in accord with his nature. Summer is long gone, she thinks, eased in and out the door— stealing nothing she’d have forever anyway. After backtracking home, the cannon booms, each one sounding to her like a giant baby burped over a bony shoulder. As she turns the corner the waxed berry bushes nudge themselves closer to the Page house. Mr. Page fills up his glass with a dark sauce, and a white chef’s apron blows blunt to the playing field. Coronets are muted behind the garage as a rickety clothesline barely swivels the rahs and zoombahs from the local crowd. 65 Sister clouds lick and lick the local news helicopter’s chirp chirp chirp. Saturday sticks —the call that her friend was hit by ‘friendly fire’— a permanent departure. Backyards wear out. She talks to herself, talks herself into broadcasting grass seed, husks flying around her ears, memories in the loose motes. She becomes the underlying stasis, welcomes the ravenous birds. ...