Off somewhere comes the watery chee-week, chee-week of birds. Trees crack, acorn falls on the table we share here, a circular saw ringing far away. “Diamonds and Rust” is on the radio.
I fear earmites, Obie, the gentle smooth canyon of your waxless ears. I cannot botch this, not this child, and have to keep rearranging the pillows to keep you from the sharp spears of the filtered light.
A phone rings in the locked cottage next door. A helicopter’s dull chop is nearing. I miss you, Emily, when I see your brother sleeping.
In the neighbor’s shed, its walls and roof sided in gravelly ninety pound red roofing paper, the pump hums incessantly though no one is there. The dials on their electric meter spin like Saturn’s rings, all their power leaking out somewhere only to rise again from water.