Homepage photograph via Flickr by D. Sharon Pruitt

It must have been great at first. The gravel lane,
the white phone, the cakes. That lampshade,
we had. Absolutely exact.

A family was standing in a high place.
Down in the street, a car beeped
and then they all waved. You see what it becomes.

He was a boy once.
He remembers
his father. And all the men.

He rebuilds the maze, he’ll bring his son here.

Why do you laugh? are you afraid?

Will you sit here ’til I fall asleep?

She has her habit in the suitcase.
Even a stone can disappear.
And now this. This is really hard.
Yes. Or “be a man.”
Imagine how strong he’d need to be.

Please don’t tell me more about the future.

As you’ve heard
it has started to
snow
again
snow chains
on the mountain roads
chains are needed
What light!
He beats her.

And everybody knows.

Here’s the house, still white.

Arms
Sight
Absence

The life I’d have. Giant apples?
or the first red leaves? What else did he like?
Let’s go under those trees.

She looks after them
with concern. How long? Considering the ties
of that year. The knots. Was it just a sex thing?

We were looking for a street.

There had been
some kind of earthquake.
And I remember this part very clearly—

Something so familiar, not from now
but—it’s like dating a statue. I mean,
500 BC600 BCdating it.

There were no men. I don’t know why.
War.
Or just the time of day. Let me hear his name again.

I looked it up, but it wasn’t there. I got
“Do I have to use a condom?” and
“Your camera doesn’t matter.”

Promise.
Swear not to.

The shelves are empty. Everyone’s
lifetime.
I thought you didn’t believe in sin.
Statue burns down, we make another statue.
There’s a special name for
all of us are having the same dream.

Listen:

Kate Greenstreet

Kate Greenstreet is the author of The Last 4 Things and case sensitive, both from Ahsahta Press. Her new work can be found in Chicago Review, Colorado Review, Boston Review, and other journals. For more information, see "kickingwind.com":http://kickingwind.com.