Story
- Story
1.
It was the story she told relentlessly while he was still in the hospital: repeated like a lesson her future depended upon.
And then it became the story she no longer told, the story that lived alone in the dark.
2.
His arms caught fire. That’s how he was rescued: the thin plume of smoke from the burning arms of the conscious man trapped in the hay baler attracted the notice of a man driving by the isolated hay field.
The man with his arms snared in the mangle of the baler gave directions for his own rescue: how to kill the power on the PTO, and when the ambulance arrived, how to release him into the remainder of his life. [End Page 7]
3.
Heading into the operating room the surgeon told the wife he could not save the right arm but there might be hope for the left.
It was hours in the waiting room before the nurse appeared and asked, “Mrs. Herz?”
then wordlessly handed her his wedding ring. [End Page 8]
CHRISTINE GELINEAU is the author of three books of poetry, most recently CRAVE (2016). Gelineau is associate director of Creative Writing at Binghamton University and also teaches in the low-residency MFA at Wilkes University.
