Box Elders / Summer of ‘66
by Robert Vaughan
Box Elders
The box elders sense impending doom. They crawl up the insides of the Laundromat windows. They wander this way, then that, somewhat circular, as in some vortex or whirlwind. When winter transcends, their frenzied dance ceases. Until then, an insatiable search for warmth, hiding places, postpone the inevitable.
Blankets draped over picnic table, inside my box, playing I was invisible. I taught myself to disappear, that summer we moved into a duplex without dad. Frozen into one cataclysmic year.
Summer of ‘66
In the summer of ‘66 I dated a guy with hair the color of napkin. We knew how to appreciate the little we had. Slept on a futon that doubled as a day couch. Caught crayfish in Cripple Creek with our hands. Sought truth, but never found it. You had to cut through a mackerel forest of pretense that grew thicker, compressed with each additional day. We were drenched in silt by late August. When the trees flamed, I split, like leaves, one limb, then another. My heart was last to go. Some of what remains.
Robert Vaughan teaches workshops in hybrid writing, poetry, fiction at locations like Synergia Ranch, Mabel Dodge Luhan House. He leads roundtables in Milwaukee, WI. His flash fiction, ‘A Box’ was selected for Best Small Fictions 2016 and his flash, “Six Glimpses of the Uncouth” was chosen for Best Small Fictions 2019 (Queen’s Ferry Press). His work as appeared in Hobart, Big Other, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is Editor-in-Chief at Bending Genres. Vaughan is the author of five books, the latest is FUNHOUSE.
