In the City of Flying Trumpets

I wish I could tell you exactly when they’ll appear. They used to come with the sunrise every morning, shouting their flourish into the skies, a salute like something you’d hear at an Olympic opening ceremony:

Praise

Mahogany board by swelling board sits still on a hill between  yellow birch. The dogs down the road  sing to each other, while a dead calf

Determination

Beneath translucent lids, its eyes were purple hull peas. Directly above, the nearest branches were much too high to reach, so we filled the shoebox with grass and twigs.

Heat Harvest

The fire, then: orange-red, orange-yellow, orange-blue, just blue. Colors like threadbare sheets pinned to a line, and blowing.

Best Intentions

The people that wore the hats didn’t see the birds when they lived. They didn’t know that their bodies never bent that way.

The Vacation

She hasn’t kissed anyone for seven years, and though with Diane she doesn’t feel the same electric desire coursing through her body that she had felt for the men she’d been with romantically in years past, she feels something. Something she didn’t know she could feel. Something she still hasn’t named.