Judith Slater

The large man in the Budweiser tee with serpents twining on his arms has leukemia. It doesn’t seem right but they’ve told him he won’t die for years if he sticks with the treatment. He’s talking about his years in the foundry, running a crane on an overhead track in the mill. Eight hours a day moving ingots into rollers. Sometimes without a break because of the bother of getting down. Never had an accident. Never hurt anyone. He had that much control. His problem is that electricity arced through his body and accumulated. When he got down at the end of a shift he could squeeze a forty-watt light bulb between thumb and finger and make it flare. All the guys came around to see that.

Four weeks in, quarreling and far from home, we came to the loneliest place. A western railroad town. Remember? I left you at the campsite with greasy pans and told our children not to follow me. The dying light had made me desperate. I broke into a hobbled run, across tracks, past warehouses with sun-blanked windows to where a playground shone in a wooded clearing. Then I was swinging, out over treetops. I saw myself never going back, yet whatever breathed in the mute woods was not another life. The sun sank. I let the swing die, my toes scuffed earth, and I was rocked into remembrance of the girl who had dreamed the life I had. Through night, dark at the root, I returned to it.