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Signal Fire
The night watchman on the roof drops his cigarette into the alley behind
my father's restaurant, just missing the grease barrel, exploding sparks
against the screen door where I'd be standing, looking up, if I hadn't
climbed the fire escape to bring him coffee.
"You're a special kind of woman, Rose," he says, and I blush, fingering
my name tag, shaking my hair loose beneath the moon.
Bridge of Rope
In time, given the opportunity, nature reclaims what it can. The patch
of jungle land behind my father's house is no different, our childish
makeshift bridge no exception. All along the path are places where
twenty years before my brothers and I had cut wide openings; now an
overgrowth of thick vines had wound several times in and around the
narrow bridge. The vines had closed like a knot, pinching the ropes,
popping the wood so that many planks were standing or leaning at odd
angles; around them a dense growth had formed and swelled into a green
barrier. We hacked for hours. We worked in shifts. Our baby brother was
dead. In memory of him we fastened safety lines to our belts and swung
from high heaven.
In Posse:
Potentially, might be ... 
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