Little Fox Music Box

The night before the funeral, my daughter kept asking for Grampa’s movie, I wanna watchGrampa’s movie, and our eyes sought each other, helpless— no one knew what movie was his and only his—and then we realized it was that tinkling app with the flannelled fox and the banjo and the twittering, lit-up-with-fireflies sky— so my husband gathered her as Jim had gathered her before, as I can imagine him doing again, only he won’t, but there he is— his full head of hair back and his brown sweater filled out and the fat leather chair holding them, the voices of recorded children singing the evening song and the hole in the oak is glowing with candlelight, some woodland family imagined to sleep, only my daughter will tap again, and the song will sing again and again, the sun will never come, it will always be that night, that endless, endless night.