My Mother Worries

My mother always worries about me in this neighborhood. After watching two Peregrine Falcons battle it out in air the above me, I think I am worried about me, too.

After the Storm

They don't tell you when you're gearing up for the big one

that there won't be a thing to do afterward.

I buried my valuables and hunkered down for judgment day

on their well worn advice.

It was hard without a husband, but I managed.

But now there's not a thing to do but sit

atop the knotted metal and boards shaped new

by wind stronger than an I had ever seen.

All that was of use to me is now trapped under dirt

and a pile that had been my equipment

and our home.

I sit and stare at the new shapes the wind made from hearth and earth.

Then it occurs to me:

They're going to find his body.

When I buried my valuables, I forgot to bury him deep.

It's a damn shame.

It's a shame about Jill, but no one liked how she always talked about herself, anyway.

Can they feed us all?

They told us our country is our Mother. They demand faith, but we are hungry.

We look for symbols of our mother, symbols of our country. We look to the buildings they built: brick and mortar and iron. The world is watching, they said. The world will need to know, need to see our might, our stability.

Someone told us iron is required for life, and you get it from meat. There is no meat this year they tell us, but maybe they are only the middleman and maybe that is capitalism. Maybe we can deny the middleman.

We look to the buildings they built for our Mother, but can they feed us all?

Old Paint

The old paints carried a history of a building changing hands on their backs when they were led in twos and threes from the smoke-filled building. Each one was saved and led off down the street in spite of their squealing kicks, but the card game and prize money had to be abandoned.

“Which would you rather?” Leroy riddled to the younger laborers, “A night’s winnings or a life’s earnings?”

Fire raged in high heat across the street, but all hands had their sweating backs turned. Every eye from the stable were on the dripping reds and yellows and blues of their father’s and their grandfather’s lifetimes sliding off the front of the building. It was awesome to behold. The men told the story for years, though the youngest of them remembered scrubbing the signage from the 150 ponies the next day much better.

Evidence of Fire

In the morning, there are tracks and evidence of fire, though I slept the whole night through. The cold of the evening before has dissipated with the dark, yet the pump will not bring up water. I repeat the motion again and again. None comes.

I wander back to my blanket, but feel no warmth in its embrace. There are no ashes left sleeping in the fire. I swirl the dead things awhile, uncovering something below. It is charred and decorated with crude tool marks. I lift it slowly, uncovering more in the action: bones picked clean.