Monday, December 3, 2007

We Three

We three boys sit legs criss-crossed on the brown grass. Leaf shadows make blotches on the ground and the house and our memory's landscape. Please let's not play war Ma said with twig gun in hand, pine cone grenades shoved down pockets. If Pa were here we'd be building kites out of newspaper or touching tadpoles, screaming at the slime. If Pa were here we'd be grass stained, we'd be sulfur handed from firecrackers.

We three boys wear matching white hats and in the summer we plant gardens to honor our father, grow vegetables to feed our mother. Memory goes like this: an image piled on top of another image, different but only slightly. Is nothing still and silent? Shoot, bang, fire; shootbangfire.

We three boys lie in the grass, face down. Mother says casualties is a terrible game, but we compete to see who can stay so still, who can trick the enemy. We're not really dead, Ma: we're only practicing.

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