After your wife dies, you write that you’re moving back East, so I drive three hours to see you. You’re dragging a hose across your yard, bandana around your head, not expecting me. Let’s sit by the river, you say, and I ask, Would you mind if I get my dog from the car? Your hips give you some trouble with the stairs to the small wooden deck. We’re talking about packing, selling the rare books, sedating your cat, when two chickadees land in the branches above your shoulder. They’re waiting to eat from your hand. What will they do this winter without you? The sun warms our faces. While light sparkles on ripples the wind makes, you tell a story I’ve never heard: fifty-five years ago, you gave up a daughter, and now she has found you. You’d searched for her for years. I had no idea. It’s saved my life, you say. At the edge of my vision, I’m aware yellow leaves are drifting to the water, I’m aware the river is carrying them away. My watch has slipped to the inside of my wrist; how long can I stay? My dog, who has slept between us all afternoon, sits up and yawns, and offers you his paw.

—From the author’s forthcoming book Paper Sky, scheduled for release on 5 October 2024 by Press 53.

Kathleen McGookey

has four books and four chapbooks of prose poems published, most recently Cloud Reports (Celery City Chapbooks). Her book Paper Sky is forthcoming from Press 53. Her work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Epoch, Glassworks, Hunger Mountain, Los Angeles Review, North American Review, and The Southern Review.