the train cars switch direction. The ocean is now to your left. It’s important that you face forward ... buzzing, spraying sand. You can see the choppers hovering. The California fan palm, the petticoat or desert ... tiny, human hand on her slick back. Her back the seat of a swing in the rain. These were our friends ...

can’t touch. “Tell your mother about it,” he says. “I did,” I tell him. “She said this summer we’d have ... me?” I say, “Please, won’t you let me come in?” I close my eyes and I can almost hear them. If only ... hay for our cows. Soon he’ll take an ax to the pond and chop away the ice so they can get to water. ...