You Are My Only (an excerpt)

My Keds make whisper hurry hurry sounds across the cement walk.  In the broken places, in the cracks, it’s getting sloppy.  I feel a dampness sinking in around my toes and wish I’d remembered socks, but I’m not going back and it isn’t cold, just a little chilly beneath the eye of the moon.  They searched the whole woods—the police and their dogs.  They went partway up the railway tracks on the opposite side of the trees, until, with the dark and the rain, they called for quitting and asked for more photos, said they would call out all the forces.  I don’t know where they’ll go tomorrow, what leads they think they have, who they imagine would do this, or why, what time they’ll drink their coffee and start.  But I can’t wait. I won’t. The moon is my lamp, and I follow.  My heart is a sick, soft place, and my lungs are very small.

 — excerpt, You Are My Only (forthcoming from Egmont USA, fall 2011)