Unshod Quills

Crush

Here are boys who pull fish from the nearby lake that wraps around the house. Tongues paralyzed and glittering, they fill bucket after bucket of sluggish charred ghosts. Here I tell the boys to pay attention to the fires in dreams: The girl never died. But if she really died, we never talk about it. There was no man. There was no one slipping near gravel or kissing on the side of the road. There is no wishing of ashes, the rumble of a fire that never happened. There may have been a noose, but it was used for overturning the logs in the fire. There was a yellow bird near the window; we saw it from the lake. Our hands were covered in the glimmer of fish scales. Our shins were swollen with water. There was a black dog nearby, waiting for me.