The house is cold, always. I pile on afghans, comforters, my small body weighted to the bed. When I close my eyes, my mother’s voice: "We’re living in the last days.” When I close my eyes, my father somersaults into darkness, erupts into flame, evaporates until only his wide green eyes remain as true believers watch from the sidelines of paradise. Then the scent of Pall Malls drifts up the stairs, extricating me from the cinema of destruction. I reach my hand through the hyperborean air, stretch my fingertips high enough to graze my mother’s prayers and my father’s exhalations.
Darci Schummer is author most recently of The Ballad of Two Sisters (Unsolicited Press). She is an assistant professor of creative writing at CSU Pueblo.