In a Field

When I tried to get up and run, she grabbed my ankle, and I fell, laughing. When she ran, I did the same, and took her shoe right off. She hopped and ran her way into the trees, and I just sat and laughed and watched her, watched her leg muscles tighten and release.

I tore some grass out of the ground and smiled while I waited, ripping each blade down its veins. Then I put my hand in her sneaker, where my fist barely fit. To show I was a sport, I took off my shoes. I think there were birds. The longer I waited, the more I lost the laughter. When it was all gone, I got up on my feet and walked towards the trees.

When I saw the red, I thought it was in my eyes. I wiped at my closed eyelids, then opened them. Her head lay against a stone, and I could see the bottom of her dirty sock, brown with soil and mucked with twigs and leaves. I never got to see her fall.