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| Judith Skillman The Gray Trees of August Float in their dry beds as if someone had died. Someone has died. Outside the pharmacy they have removed the plants, even the last blueberry that stood over its pot gesticulating as it browned. The gray trees wandered all night in their places. Sleep didn’t come. Where there might have been tetanus a deep muscle ached in a woman’s arm. Pewter in the trees, lead in the sky, clouds where rain happens before it can reach the earth. In dust and pills a few pages of the book that will be winter loosens its little coat, removes its illusions. As if someone had died, all night the trees stood still for a Shiva attended by no one. Heavy casseroles clattered as glass lids sat upside down. Countertops and floors sprouted more of the gray dirt a woman might wipe with her cloth. A few stars cooled as they rusted to the sky and stuck fast. At five a.m., before sleep, came morning. The woman thought of her heart. Maybe she wandered outside herself, beside wild roses gray as the trees. Like treacle, what was left of the creek oozed. |  |