James McKean

From my window I watch the roots of a willow push your house crooked, women rummage through boxes, your sons cart away the TV, its cord trailing like your useless arms. Only weeks ago we watched the heavyweights, and between rounds you pummeled the air, drank whiskey, admonished “Know your competition!” You did, Kansas, the ‘20s when you measured the town champ as he danced the same dance over and over: left foot, right lead, head down, the move you’d dreamt about for days. Then right on cue your hay-bale uppercut compressed his spine. You know. That was that. Now your mail piles up, RESIDENT circled “not here.” Your lawn goes to seed. Dandelions burst in the wind. From my window I see you flat on your back on some canvas, above you a wrinkled face, its clippy bow tie bobbing toward ten. There’s someone behind you, resting easy against the ropes, a last minute substitute on the card you knew so well, vaguely familiar, taken for granted, with a sucker punch you don’t remember ever having seen.

There is little I can do besides stoop to pluck them one by one from the ground, their roots all weak links, this hoard of Lazaruses popping up at night, not the Heavenly Blue so like silk handkerchiefs, nor the Giant White so timid in the face of the moon, but poor relations who visit then stay. They sleep in my garden. Each morning I evict them. Each night more arrive, their leaves small, green shrouds, reminding me the mother root waits deep underground and I dig but will never find her and her children will inherit all that I’ve cleared when she holds me tighter and tighter in her arms.