Curt Brown

They brought it up in trucks, in trope

Grumble... grumble... wondered the nephewless uncle, his niece has gone toward stores weeks ago—migrated westward and shallowed the clouds as they stumblebummed their freight across the bindlestiff plains. He wondered, expressed wonder in grumbles and pushed his cap back to let a line of sweat trace floorward. Orange juice, she had said. The light snaked in cracked blinds. She was gone. His sister was all metaphor. Why hadn't she birthed a boy? Bouncing in blue—bubblegum cigars. Instead she left him with railroads, carving their rails back, illusory-connecting in distant childhood.

Grumble. He wondered again, pulling a folded pack of cigarettes from the pocket of fade denim coverall. Rivets, he thought and he did his best to rivet his memory of her—of both hers—into firm coiled dirt. He planted the tiny metal where it could afford a view of the sea. Swallow the salt. Steal an errant beam. His nephew was a lighthouse. A pulsar. Still, wood clambered in bits. Jagged. His hands were full of splinters. Orange juice, stanzad citrus. Hollow, he thought. Grumble. The pins engaged, the rectangles were plagiarists. There—concrete. The sea heard as blood, beating in tide to his head. Groaning light, hum. In this hue, just. His hand gripped. Cold. Grumble, he wondered, is Florida this close?