Afternoon, and: Charting from Pines

121 MAGGIE EVANS AFTERNOON a. The river was glinting down the hill. It shone and pale grass, too. Shining palely and swaying. Bright knees knifing brightly from a thin skirt, and a lone glass ringing like a glass sun. Like sharp, braying faces. The glinting river, glinting grass. Someone’s bracelets making their bright demands. No god gave them to shine so, like faces. They shone with their own untouchable light. b. No one was inside to see the table glowing or the floor beneath. But the dust there was visible. Made red and moting the air. Or made a blown lace on the unused edges of the table. No one came in until sunset. There’d be time later to know what was given, what received. 122 MAGGIE EVANS CHARTING FROM PINES a. Eyes first. They are a pine, of course. Looking up when we think real hard. The lips in our family are a pine, too. Thin when they aren’t thick. (I dreamt all my photos were gone.) This is how we figure where we come from. b. We needle to sunlight, listing and leaning to the densities nearest the trunk, the nesting smell, the tiny animal places. We bark brightly toward the sun. Like pines. Like pines (I dreamt you died and the nurse was slow) we change the light that’s filtered through us. ...