In the orchard beyond the greenhouse a weeping of clothesline. Midwest summer’s high corn.
I was a peach then, just blooming in the jelly glass. Green, like June grasshoppers.
Someday, I will forget all of this, and my father’s voice, how it boomed and crackled, stern or angry, never sympathetic—boom, crackle! A factory machine or box of firecrackers.
A restless night, those sounds of skittering mice feet, a cat’s whisker-tremble, opening my eyes, my father filling the doorway—a tower, a tree whispering, hands open like a book.
I could tell him I understand now. I won’t. It will all be gone, like a dream or a fury. But one day, I will whisper over him, too, my hands open like a book.