The Hideaway By Kathryn Kysar
Saint Paul, 1972 The purple tree was the color of dust in moonlight, the bark brown in its slow death, the split in the branches low enough to reach by standing on a bike seat. Nestled in its hollows, we'd lean back, ponder the shimmering stars in the darkening late summer sky, leaves painted orange by sunset. It was imminent: the start of school, the change of season, our feet outgrowing our beat-up summer shoes, the bombs falling on TV. The news was bad, the body count climbing my mother distraught, my father taking his students to peace marches, the men in black cars parked outside on our silent street, waiting. That girl, running on a flat dirt road, her naked child body slick, smooth, and strong, how could I share my favorite bell bottoms and purple shirt, ride her on my banana bike, let her lean back into the arms of the tree, the only flames the sunset in the distance?
8
April 2015