It is getting late in the day the sun has retreated to the other side of the earth The frozen days are lengthening and the icicles are disappearing into little pools at the bottom of the spruce I have a lingering story to tell you It’s about an old man who used to follow us around in the summers by the lake Ronkonkoma He let us tie him to a tree one Fourth of July weekend after the war when our parents had forgotten about us They remembered just in time to stop us from successfully lighting the match Very little was ever said about it We were a gang that summer presided over by my older sister Perhaps that is why she cringes when I tell the story coda: now that my sister is gone and my brother—who was maybe seven then there is no one else left to remember how we almost crossed the line into the inconceivable Montclair, NJ, 2005 (coda—2015, Union City)
Hiding Out