Cars Passing When You Think You Know Yourself

III.
Scary thoughts---we're afraid to think them. Like the boy who had never been stung by a bee. We were eating pancakes early morning on his mother's front porch. I thought maybe he should, just so he knows how it feels. But instead I said, "it hurts." I didn't meant to discourage him cause it's really not that bad. Then feathers fell and filled the streets. Too many for a flying thing to still be flying, or alive. He said, "See? The world is dead and no one is singing."

II.
The cinnamon muffins guy walks like he's got nowhere to go. I say hello even though I think if anyone in this town were to murder me it would be him. I see him pass on sunny days in cut-off jeans and a black t-shirt. I see him pass on snowy days in cut-off jeans and a black t-shirt. I sit on my front porch and I drink my orange juice and wait for him some days just to see if I'm still afraid.

I.
When they found me I was four years old asleep on a pew on the front porch of a log cabin. Beneath the pew I kept a small pile of green ribbon cut into squares and strawberries picked too soon from the patch outback. They were for the eventual collective. My parents couldn't see what I was working on. In their sleep I told them about the too many pieces still apart and asked if they would help me find the ones that fit and then line the inside of every front door with what we've found.