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Show Go Love/200 outside while the bats come out as the sky stretches out. The Trail of Tears, who'd believe that, that my people are buried on the Trail of Tears? When one of us laughs, we all laugh, and the bats chase mosquitoes. Down the street the grads students strum guitars. The mammoth torch burns up at Olympic park. We drink a lot, me and Renee, we're in high spirits. We're fifteen hundred miles from Arkansas, and that many again from Florida. The Rocky Mountains are between us and Lonoke. What can threaten from the other side? Three nights later, the first visitation brings me awake with breath hard in my throat after midnight, the phone ringing at maybe one a.m . I tell myself its a dream, my mother speaking my name. The phone's ringer is off kilter. Renee seems a mile off the bed, the streetlight seeping through the blinds. Late June now, past solstice, a bright night. The phone rings late. I lay there listening to the message machine kick in. Joey? Through the wall, Mama says. |
