stomping over the red clay

rustling fire ants

just below

through the undergrowth

 

we’d ford the crick with help

of a felled tree

tying strings to sticks and baiting them

with syrupy gum

zooey and i would sit catching frogs

 

i remember something had turned the town grey

people kept moving and

zooey would threaten to leave me

in the sewer outside of the library

if i couldn’t keep quiet

so i learned to

 

manic and sick of the red clay

where nothing grew

our dad left forever for california

but turned around

when he ran halfway

out of money