WATER
Fred Leebron

She touches his hair by the river.
     I am in our apartment, working. Her hand moves down his back.
     I empty the trash and unclog the kitchen sink. His former girlfriends have turned into lesbians.
     I take the key to his apartment, which he gave me so I could water his plants during the summer. He bends his kissing face to hers.
     I walk over to his apartment, just two blocks away. Their legs dangle in the river.
     I unlock the door and bolt it behind me. The room smells of feet and stale ashtrays.
     In the kitchen is a gas stove. I turn it on without lighting it.
     Down by the river is a flock of geese, which they admire while holding hands.
     Soon he will take her back to his apartment. Soon they will lie there, readying cigarettes.
     I relock the apartment and slip into the street. The air smells of autumn, burnt. In the sky, birds are leading each other south.
     I know there is nothing left between us, that she looks at me each morning as if I were interrupting her life.

this is it.

and so it begins...


     ill burn, he thought, and be scattered in ashes all over the continental lands. ill be put to use. just a little bit, but ashes are ashes and theyll add to the land.
     he fell swiftly, like a bullet, like a pebble, like an iron weight, objective, objective all of the time now, not sad or happy or anything, but only wishing he could do a good thing now that everything was gone, a good thing for just himself to know about.
     when i hit the atmosphere, ill burn like a meteor.
     “i wonder,” he said, “if anyonell see me.

     the small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. “look, mom, look! a falling star!”
     the blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in illinois.
     "make a wish,” said his mother. “make a wish.”