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Zinnia elegans By Lydia A. Cyrus QuailBellMagazine.com  Baby brother tells a lie about his pain. It sounds like a testimony in church. He raises his hands in defense of his lie: they are covered
in soot. The smell of tobacco haunts across hours, state lines. He will not come back. His gas masks hung around his neck, his shield. As he faces other masks, waiting. He tore down houses when he was home, now the home is torn apart. The big island swims between foreign soils: right in the middle. He cries when it’s time to leave. If he had stayed after Christmas, he would have missed the false alarm. How does the grit feel under foot, between fingers? Why lie to me, brother? Have we not feared the same launches and departures? He calls the witching, his own time to mourn the service. The bar stool knows his absence the way I do: brother and sister parted by the sea. He is a transplant. The beer bottles are still behind our grandmother’s house. I can see the trucks, the rifles how they aim in the dark. Shooting wild pigs under the fronds of palm trees. Then they eat the meat they riddled with bullets. He would not admit guilt to anyone. Zinnias are annuals, so they grow for one season, but do not come back. You should grow zinnias from seed, as they do not like to be transplanted and do not often thrive. CommentsComments are closed.
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