cONTEMPORARIES

I am at this moment a fly in amber honey-slow in the hot car
humidity as breathing through mittens
or, clenched fists
or, arms held high to protect
or, burying your face in a pillow each night
counting slowly to seven

inhale one-two-three-four-exhale-count-to-eight.

As a child I pressed my hands to the space between eyelid and temple when faced with something frightening: blinders.

But when they bulldozed it all to the ground? I sat facing it inhaled and cried.
Mine and Danny’s names scratched into the concrete at the flagpole’s base and now? That’s all that’s left of that life: the nursery gone, the house, the home, the neighbor boy who hid in the tall-grass field? He crashed his car on the road I drive daily,

the flag has garroted itself in the breeze this eve and now from the pole at the edge of our garage only the red and the white are visible; and in a moment I’ll leave

the car lift it from its mount wind the tail over and complete the task that’s started, brace to fold it shut before even a corner dips to touch the ground.