Map of Heesakker Park and Woods, Little Chute, Wisconsin

Callista Buchen

This is where the boy came back,
in his garrison cap and crutches.
This is where, with two hands
and the one leg that was left,
he learned to climb the silo
again, as his brother winched
down the basketball hoop
with the claw of a hammer
and the blunt end of an axe
for good measure. This is where
the brother wedged the blade
into packed clay, as if he could pry
the world open like an oak tree,
touch the fibrous heart
and each drought, each thing
gone missing and yellow, each return.

This is where the mother thrashed
the kitchen rug with a birch branch
until everything bled, the red and dust
and sap flung like seeds into the garden.
This is where the screen door
wouldn’t hold its latch. Where the cows
didn’t remember he had left.
Where memory is a sign and a plaque
and a parking space. Where memory
is an oak leaf in early November,
its thread about to tear. Where
the limbs mark the watch, and wait.

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→EMPRISE 16