This Summer on Elm Walk

Night, 18 July. Unit 4B, at the street-facing end of Elm Walk.

The bulb is on. The wooden floor runs long and plain. At the far end the boards are a little pressed, as if someone had just been sitting. The light finds nobody.

Heat holds in the walls and on the skin. There is no air conditioner. From the courtyard-facing balcony, the one wooden platform sits empty below. Cicadas are thinning. The first frogs have started from the canal.

The kitchen door is closed. Next door is one wall away. June Hartley is not on this floor. Soil is still on the skin from the lots. She has gone home to eat, still turning the talk over.

The boards stay empty under the bulb.