Crab Orchard Review, Vol. 15, No. 1

Bruce BondThe Girl Who Feared the WindThe trees know. And the leaves that flee them.No root is deep enough to still their panic,much less the girl who refuses to speak,who breathes that much harder with the wind.A mother’s coat flares its woolen sail.She kneels to ask, what is it, Girl, why.Some nights the girl listens to the branches,how they scratch the sky in black chalk.What is it to touch everything, beingnothing. Like the thing you almost think.There’s a questioning in the rise of weather,so old now the words are worn away.And over and over, the sigh that answers.She watches a boy from her window,running with his kite. He too is a wind,a joy so quick he slips the thought of joy.Not that no one holds her coat for her,or coaxes her arms in the woolen sleeves.But what does she see as her mother’slips move, talking to no one. What does28 u Crab Orchard Review