Winter 2002
	Charlie Smith
	Towns Along the River
	Day frightened me, daylight did sometimes, the way it vaulted
	precisely into place among the dogwoods. You get so you can't tell anymore what's going on
	so you store it in a special chamber and think about bungalows,
	toolsheds and dusty ransacked houses overlooking the river. Just address them one by one - that's what
	Father said. And the days took on number, and coloration, and malediction,
	some small derelictous manner in the way we spoke to strangers, the way the fire truck sat outside the station for months
	untended, rusting in the rain. And the farmers lost everything that year, sure,
	while we listed to the new music on the radio and Mother grew dependent on her medicine.
	Time will tell, the principal said and crossed her heart with the left panel
	Of her robe, spilling flowers down the front of her looking at me as if I might, if I was quick, get what was going on.