Tonight’s Quarry by D. A. Powell

Tonight’s Quarry.

We hadn’t got color up till then. And if I had a nickel, why, that was for milk. Milk money: the money a body gained.

Was just me on that hillside and the kite, red & white waked up into the wind. Hardly anybody knew me then.

Oh, Lord how quickly the things of this world came and went. Practically the first thing I notice when I get back.

Wind, and I am lifted. Wind and I am hauled ahead by string and air. The bows sinuate the air, I hear them tatter.

A certain kindness to that hill, its slope gone gaily green against the eve and oh, the tail dipped; the string slipped.

Uppity huff and drag of hawk air plundering eggs in the sparrow’s nest. You left this fragment, this bit of shell behind.