The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

      for Britton

      for Thea and Opal

      CONTENTS

The Apology

A Field

We Will Be Long Gone

Postcard from The End

Free Time

Marathon

Pre-Alice

Already at War

Dear Brian Turner

Shoreline

Bedtime

      When People Look to the Sky

      In the First World

      In God’s Country

      B-I-N-G-O

      Don’t Miss Our Mower and Tractor Spectacular

      Direct Contact

      Baggage

      In the First World

      In the Land of Milk

      A Hundred Miles from the Border

      Morning Girl

      And Then the Idea of Weeds

      Late Night Comedy

      Collection

      In the Days before Thanksgiving

      Pluto Was a Planet

      Tuesday

      Union

      Forecast

      The Prince of Peace Is Herding Sheep

      Inexplicable Universe

      Localized Extinction

      In the Country of Neutrality

      Wednesday

      Coming Forth to Carry Us

      Routine

      We Ask for Five Minutes

      The Robin Pulls a Thread

      Almost Biblical

      Historical Accuracy

      Pink Pigs and Orange Horses

      Dust

      Postcard from The End 2.0

      Newtown

      Disney Daughter Dead, 2013

      The Secret Lives of Cows

      Middle America

      Birth Day

      Heartwood

      In the First World

      Pen Pal

      They Shoot People, Don’t They?

      Magicicada

       THE APOLOGY

      And the apology I made for you came from a willow tree. From a lemon. From some mud I found in the living room. Our daughter thinks you are a giant. She asks you to lift the house, so she can put her dolls in timeout. There is a crack in the back of my mind and I am filling it up with forget-me-nots and sailor’s knots and do nots. There is a place behind my retina where I am fragile. If I see a sun, if I see a squid, if I see something shiny, I should pick it up. I should turn my head. I should stop watching you while you sleep because I am going to wake you up. I am going to wake up. I am sorry and you have gone to buy more mousetraps.

       A FIELD

      Once upon a time there was a fly. Once upon a time there was an ache shaped like a sunflower, at least to the eye. Once upon a time a field lay down in a patch of gods and got shot through the gut with cotton and wheat. Once upon a time all grass was seagrass and we swam, serrated by the blades of all known light.

       WE WILL BE LONG GONE

      By the time Earth is pulled into the sun. No, this won’t happen while you are asleep. Not tonight. Those are crickets. Yes, they have wings. The sound comes from their legs, like violins. Not violence. Close your eyes please. The sun is on the other side of the world because other people need day. Because we need night. Because that is how your body is made. Yes, your body is magic. Close your eyes please. The sun that went into your eyes, into your skin, into the ground today, will come up tomorrow. Yes, I’m pretty sure there are others. The moon is not the sun. Yes, they might be married. Goodnight.

       POSTCARD FROM THE END

      The war was beautiful when it started. Men hung from streetlights, their bodies pressed to poles to catch a glimpse of paper rockets. For each device: a hundred thousand dollar bills were dipped in glue and wrapped around a blue balloon. Pop-pop. Then steady hands readied rockets filled to the brim with gunpowder. A short fuse fit just through the pinhole, and women drank beer when they’d finished their shiftwork building similar bombs across the street. Children danced on broken glass of classroom windows. They sang songs about flowers and plagues.

       FREE TIME

      All around me people are falling on their forks. We drag comet tails through the streets like forgotten capes. We need a bandage. We need an adage, an adverb, a mountain sage. There’s a ringing in my eon. Whoever asks to, can come in. Raise your hand. The covers we pull up are made of magazines. Dear Atlantic, could you print something that doesn’t make me weep? I’m drying here. I want to mail you my heart. The part where you say ocean, the part where you say sure thing, the part where I turn into sky.

       MARATHON

      Jesus hears a swarm of bees beneath his porch. His television screen repeats the scene: runners blown off their lightweight frames, bystanders turned curbside amputees. Another urban cloud of smoke, the street littered with more paper. A man