There was a bank of low-hanging pines
on the corner
of Aster Drive.
Across the street from
Big Bear supermarket.
Here we sat
and were shielded from home,
where nobody could ever see
us,
millions of miles away.
I was not supposed to go there.
There was eternally mud
there in the dense pine needles
and we molded little
mud pots and left them out to dry,
make-beliveing we maybe had no homes
or maybe were Indians.
We scattered pine needles
on our crude pottery before
being called for dinner,
so nobody could steal
our prizes.
Each day with the sun
half-down in the fall
a little girl told me stories
as we muddied our hands.
A piece of burlap appeared
one day,
looking red-stained in our
imaginations.
This was the clothing of a murdered
man, she told me.
He died right here,
we are sitting on his body.
I fingered the cloth
and felt my stomach
churn.
She told me
never to tell.
Nobody could know we'd found
this body,
we had found a dead man
and his clothes.
Only years later
and miles away would
I know,
this was fabric wrapped around the base of the pine,
but my fingers still
know the truth.
[This is also nonfiction.]
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