The Zone at the End of Summer

© Beth Roberts

It takes three months just to wean yourself down to the next lower level of nicotine. A forecast. I drag the eyes across the long groan of the crops. What do the Christian rockers do with a day like this? The weather's severe clear but heaven's disappeared, no, it's elsewhere, as the flood also is elsewhere this evening. Past the violet elms, the dim herds, it gnaws another place, Mississicky, chant the kids. And while the radio duly cites its sick statistics I wonder which is better, preferable rather: mud in the eyes or to be the finest detail in a rite of initiation. Does mud also fill the mouth of an undiscovered grave? Is the rite a rape? Turn here to make your decision.