All my thoughts are
questions. None of them
are thoughts.
risk?
rescue?
help?
safety?
criminals?
danger?
assault?
A voice shouts from up the street.
The Deciding Factor
“Hey! Check out
what we found
in the pawnshop!”
I spy.
A man jogs back to the group.
He holds a tiny kitten, mewing and squirming.
“What the hell?”
Angry Voice looks at him like he’s crazy.
“What exactly do you plan to do with that?”
“Keep it? It’s kind of cute.
It can ride in the pocket of my jacket.”
Angry Voice looks at him.
Holds out his hand.
“Lemme see it.”
Takes the kitten.
Holds it.
Picks up a towel from the truck bed.
Wraps the kitten tightly.
Swings the towel twice up over his head
and slams it hard into the side of the big truck.
Tosses the towel and its contents back to the man.
Turns and shouts orders at the others.
The man holds the towel.
Nothing moves.
He tosses it into the dirty snow.
Climbs into the back of the truck.
Helps muscle a dishwasher on board.
These are not my rescuers.
If I’m not careful,
I will need to be rescued from them.
I inch back down the alley
to where George waits.
Please Don’t Bark, George
We sprint away.
Thank God
there isn’t enough snow
to leave tracks.
We dodge in and
out of shadows.
I want to go back for my bike
but can’t risk being seen.
I hope if the looters find it
in the street
they will think it abandoned
in the evacuation.
At Dad’s house
I lock the doors.
Run upstairs.
Peer down through curtains
to the street below.
Nothing moves.
(So glad I didn’t make a fire this morning.
No woodsmoke smell.)
Mind rips through possibilities.
What if they go looting house to house?
What if they find me?
What if they hurt me?
Breathe in. Exhale.
Breathe in. Exhale.
Breathe in. Exhale.
One thing is clear.
I need to know what’s happening.
I need to see and know for sure.
I have one advantage.
I know where they are
but
they have no idea
I exist.
Reconnaissance
Dad’s black sweatshirt.
Jennifer’s black jeans.
Black stocking cap.
Feed George.
Scratch him between the ears.
Good boy. Stay.
Lace up boots.
Slip out back door.
Lock.
Run toward Main Street.
Stay in alleys.
Between garages.
Stop frequently to listen.
I hear them before I see them.
The looters have progressed
farther down the street and are
at the Park-n-Ride.
They hoist up barrels
of cell phones
dump the phones into
the back of the pickup.
Metallic waterfall
of plastic and glass.
Angry Voice leans
against the bus shelter.
Lights a cigarette.
I drop to my hands and knees.
Crawl on my belly under a hedge
of forsythia bushes.
Peer through branches.
Men toss empty barrels aside.
Reach for others.
Angry Voice barks.
“Come on, you idiots, move it!”
He swears.
They hustle to pick up the next barrel.
He flicks the ash from his cigarette.
His eyes glance over ads on
the side of the shelter.
My heart stops.
Right in plain sight
taped to the bus shelter
faded from winter
is my sign from last May
announcing I am here.
Begging for help.
I freeze as Angry Voice’s eyes
read over my words.
HELP! HELP! HELP!
I WAS LEFT BEHIND AND
MISSED THE TRANSPORT!
PLEASE CALL!
He turns.
Scans the parking lot.
I press myself lower into the ground.
Pray the bushes will keep me concealed.
He fishes a phone out of his pocket.
Turns back to my sign.
Dials.
Reads something on the screen.
Puts the phone back in his pocket.
Reaches into the moving truck.
Binoculars.
Climbs up on top of the cab.
Peers through the lenses.
Scrutinizes the entire area.
360 degrees.
A man with a tattooed neck calls up to him.
“That’s the last of them.”
He lowers the binoculars.
“Right. Load up then.”
Trucks roar to life.
Men climb into a passenger van.
Angry Voice slides down from
the roof of the cab.
Climbs into the driver’s seat.
Flicks his cigarette into the gutter.
All three vehicles pull out onto Main Street.
Accelerate in the direction of the interstate.
I stay frozen until I can no longer hear
the rumble of the biggest truck.
Once it has been silent for several lifetimes
I roll onto my back and exhale.
Tears roll down my cheeks.
I didn’t know it was possible to be
relieved and devastated
at the same time.
After
For days afterward
I have trouble sleeping.
What-ifs haunt me.
I’m terrified to think
what might have happened if
they’d found me. But still
not convinced being found
would have been all bad.
Any sound makes me jump
out of my skin.
I wait more than a week before
I start using lights again at night.
I find my bike where I left it.
Ride cautiously through town.
Survey the damage the looters did
to all the local businesses.
Broken windows. Broken doors.
Destroyed property. Huge messes.
But now access to stores is easier for me.
I am oddly grateful as I go in and out
filling the bike trailer with supplies.
In the little jewelry store
smashed display cases
empty of watches and silver
and pearls.
In the back room
toppled tables and chairs.
Someone tried and failed
to pull the safe out
from under the counter.
Looted workbenches.
I open drawers, looking for tools
supplies that might come in handy.
There, in a bottom drawer
under issues of gemstone magazines
and a si
x-pack of pocket tissues
I find a handgun.
Black and large and heavy.
I hold it in both hands.
I whistle.
Would I be capable of using a gun
against those men? To protect myself?
shattered glass
fresh blood on a white T-shirt
a little bundle in the dirty snow
Yes.
He killed a kitten without blinking an eye.
Absolutely, yes.
I will do whatever it takes
to stay alive.
And I have no idea what
the outside world
is becoming.
I search all drawers and cupboards.
Find bullets on a top shelf
behind cleaning solvents.
I wrap the gun
in my sweatshirt.
Tuck it into the bike trailer along
with the ammunition and
other supplies.
I mount my bike and ride on.
Annie Oakley
The first time I fire the gun
the noise and kick of the blast
make me bite my tongue.
I find a library book about
the safe use of firearms.
Practice loading and unloading.
Lock George in the house.
Shoot cans and bottles
in the back alley behind Dad’s garage.
Find George hiding in the coat closet.
My aim improves.
I can hit my target more often
than not.
Spring Rolls Toward Summer
George and I move back
to Mom’s cooler
more comfortable house
on the other side of the lake.
I stay vigilant.
Never go anywhere unarmed.
Months go by.
The looters don’t return.
Neither does anyone else.
We patrol the town.
Keep an eye open for anything out of the ordinary.
Scavenge food and supplies.
I relax a little.
Stop bringing the gun along
every time we go out.
Leave it at home loaded on top
of the refrigerator.
Ready to grab at a moment’s notice.
Had to Happen
I wake up early one morning to pee.
Blood in the toilet.
My first period.
I know what to do from all Mom’s
your-body-is-a-beautiful-miracle
conversations.
Find pads under the sink
in the master bathroom.
I’m not afraid, but along with
the ache in my lower back
a familiar weight sneaks up.
Surrounds my heart.
Usually I push the weight down.
Stay focused on the job of keeping myself
and George alive, but this time
I let it wash over me.
This ordinary yet
significant event
finds a fissure
in the emotional wall
I’ve built.
I miss my mother more than ever.
Getting my period is supposed to be
a rite of passage.
My mom is supposed to make
a big embarrassing deal about it.
Supposed to celebrate that I am
Normal and Perfect
and Becoming a Woman.
In a French film Dad and Jennifer love
the mother slaps her daughter’s cheeks
the first time she gets her period.
The mother explains
it’s to give her a rosy complexion.
Attract lots of boys.
Ha.
Any crushes I might attract are
who-knows-how-many miles away
and I bet no one has even
thought about me since
Before Evacuation.
Even if they could see me now
they’d never recognize the
wild-looking spiky-haired
girl I have become.
And would they even like me?
Doubtful.
Would Ashanti and Emma?
What would they think of my
thieving and shooting and
driving and disregarding
every law ever made
by the county sheriff
or the fashion police?
Have they started their periods yet?
Were their mothers with them?
Mom could slap my cheeks
until the cows come home and
it wouldn’t do a thing to help
my freckled complexion.
I am so tired of holding it all together.
Anything at All
I would give anything
to have a real, live grown-up
take over all the worry and fear and work
that I’ve been doing for the past year
and just let me fall apart.
I want nothing more than to cuddle up
next to Mom and have her
stroke my hair and sing me to sleep
like she did when I was small.
I wonder for the millionth time
if I made a mistake
not revealing myself to the looters.
What if their toughness was just an act?
What if they had rescued me and taken me to safety?
What if I would already be reunited with my family by now?
If I had taken the chance
all this loneliness and isolation
might have been over months ago.
I’ll never know if the risk I didn’t take
was the stupidest decision of my life
or the thing that saved it.
But I am alive now
and as painful as it is
loneliness alone won’t kill me.
At least I hope not.
Soulmate
George senses my sorrow.
Nudges my hand with his soft nose.
I kiss him.
Press my forehead to his broad brow.
Souls merge and swirl.
Such a good dog.
My lower back aches.
I decide our plan to haul bottled water
from the gas station can wait.
I curl into George’s solid form.
Snuggle up against his warm side.
Hum Mom’s favorite lullaby until
we both fall back to sleep.
Model Home
One afternoon
we leave the bike
and hike to the far side
of the creek trail.
Wander through a half-built
neighborhood development
left unfinished.
Foundations surround
gaping cellars.
Skeleton frameworks of
ghost houses, waiting for
walls and windows.
At the end of a cul-de-sac
one solitary, finished house with
a sign out front: MODEL HOME.
A model home for model families.
A fist clenches
in my chest.
Catches me off guard.
My ears thrum.
A high-pitched
cicada call of blood
rushes through my brain.
queasy
lean forward
hands on knees
going to throw up
going to throw up
going to throw up
but then
maybe not
maybe just soul-sick
sick-and-tired sick
spit-in-the-dust sick
Model Family my ass.
Two-dimensional sticker families
on the back windows
of minivans, jeering at
the divorced kids ri
ding behind them
in the car-pool line.
Stick figures brandishing
totems of ecstatic idiocy—
coffee cups and golf clubs
soccer balls and pom-poms
Where is the sticker stepkid
with her sticker suitcase?
Hauling between sticker weeks
back and forth
between sticker houses?
Subdividing the twenty-four hours of
sticker Christmas between
four sticker adults and
two sticker street addresses?
A truly model home would need
twice the number of bedrooms
for half the number of children.
I belong to a family
all by myself:
the only intersection
between four parents
who try to make peace
as if peace is a pie
that can be baked
sliced and served at
progressive dinners
rotating the children
from table to table
house to house.
I pick up the heaviest rock I can find
and hurl it through the big front window.
The splintering crash is almost
satisfying.
Building Site
We pick our way through the
half-finished construction
of the neighborhood.
Look for forgotten tools.
Useful items.
Find one house with a plywood ramp
leading to a doorway.
“Come on, George. Let’s check it out.”
We explore the ground floor and
I imagine what it could look like.
I paint the walls rich hues to match
plush Persian carpets.
I build bookcases on one wall.
Add a window seat to a bay window.
I find what will become the staircase
to the second floor.
There are only slats where steps should be
but they are wide enough to climb
if I use my hands.
George puts his front paws on the bottom
slat but doesn’t continue. He barks
as I climb higher.
“Hush, George.”
He whines.
Sits down.
Watches me.
I climb up and stand.
Look out over the open floor plan.
No constructed walls yet so
I have to guess where bedrooms
will start and stop.
Holes in the floor suggest a bathroom
but with no walls, interior decoration
is more difficult.
George barks and whines below.
“Good boy, George. I’m coming. Just a minute.”
In the minute I say “minute”
lightning blinks across the sky.
Thunder rolls and rumbles
in the distance.
George barks again.
“Oh, Georgie, it’s just a little
Alone Page 7
