Estate Sale

She stepped barefoot through the doorway and onto the porch and into the snap of the morning air, down from the porch and onto the scratchy concrete sidewalk, off the sidewalk and onto the cold, wet grass.

Somewhere behind her, he was opening drawers and lifting up stacks of unopened mail. "Do you have the keys? Where'd she keep the keys?"

"Don't know." There was grass poking up from between her toes. She bent down to run her open palm across the tips of a once familiar lawn gone too long uncut; she laid down and let it envelop her.

Frame Of Reference

"Which one's Grandpa?" A picture in a frame, grainy and sun-faded and black-and-white, covered by a small square of thin glass.

"On the left." From the kitchen, over the sound of glasses and plates and running water. "He's the one shooting."

It did look like him, except younger, lighter. There was of course no wheeze, no faint odor of alcohol and medicine, and no chair: none of the things she had associated with him when she was little and he was alive.

"Why are the trees just sticks?"

"Artillery."

The word meant nothing to her. "Can I keep it?"

"Sure."