The Archived

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And to Shelley McBurney, who leaves a mark on everything she touches, and everyone she meets

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there; I do not sleep.

—Mary Elizabeth Frye

T

HE NARROWS

remind me of August nights in the South.

They remind me of old rocks and places where the light can’t reach.

They remind me of smoke

—

the stale, settled kind

—

and of storms and damp earth.

Most of all, Da, they remind me of you.

I step into the corridor and breathe in the heavy air, and I am nine again, and it is summer.

My little brother, Ben, is sprawled inside by the fan, drawing monsters in blue pencil, and I am on the back porch looking up at the stars, all of them haloed by the humid night. You’re standing beside me with a cigarette and an accent full of smoke, twirling your battered ring and telling stories about the Archive and the Narrows and the Outer in calm words, with your Louisiana lilt, like we’re talking weather, breakfast, nothing.

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