A boy stands on his hands. His pleated pants splay like a tree split by lightning, still blazing orange in the evening. Grass-flecked mud squelches between his fingers while the stitching of his sport coat strains his armpits. Blood floods his head. Chatter of birds and relatives vanish in the drumming sound: like red-plumed legionaries marching back to General’s mercenary throne. Then a draft of smoke, a flipped steak. Violins begin. His hair flicks white, falls upward as he rights himself to cross the purple lawn and fill the gap in line they left for him between the men’s black suits. Their backs settle like sand into one shore: in a wave at night, the dark clouds of quartz swirl, then spread under the foam, surrendering to the coast that begot their grains. Above the breakers planets rise from the horizon red, black, brown, blond like men who stand turning together toward the aisle.
