backwards

Backwards, he kept saying, backwards. I thought of the red-headed Australian journalist who'd used that word, and about her Italian husband and the murder in the mountains and her newly published novel cover; how they'd changed the title. You just have no say in a thing like that, she'd said, it's all backwards there. And here I am writing with a new pen. Here I am in my new handwriting, my old rooms. I'd been down in their basement, stacking t-shirts. I'd been down at the river treading water and I looked up to see the city of Richmond lurking over us. This was all Bob's idea, of course. He didn't trust the water there. I was driving back to Boston and off the highway I saw a trailer tractor on fire like a raw animal. The tree tops singed and curled under in flames. The highway was silent. The fire hoses hissed and saved no one. It all passed by clear as a photograph, real as it could manage to be. Believable. We had to crawl along on our bellies all the way to Philadelphia. When we got there it was full of christmas lights. It looked like a dream. Only later could we tell they were factories. And a man I know says "engine" like he's saying "injun". All I hear is injun, injun. Nobody saw her coming. The cats were panting hot. It drives a U-haul around town, pays for red feathers. I'm not good at these things, said Bob. I really did. And Bob, I said, we can stay in our rooms, Bob. We can read all these books. Oh, but the spine tires and the feet itch whether or not the brain moves. This is how it feels underwater; It feels like a tunnel. It looks like its green.