Jason Fraley
XVII
from Paper Trail
Mother and I’s schedule revolves around night shift. Midnights. When Father walks into that twisted rust and halogen constellation. Early one morning, he smuggles me in disguised as a doctor’s note. The fire clings near, a thin blanket that lures workers closer in their sleep. It spills through the grated walkways. It hides insight ductwork elbows.
A man slaps Father’s shoulder from behind, crushes me into a ball with his handshake. Tick marks line his eyes, thick yet separate, the way a prisoner might track time. The way lovers carve initials into a park bench.
Mother experiments: wet socks in the drier, beneath a pile of hardcover crime novels, clothespin taut, a crimson iron’s threat. When I squint the next night as Father’s taillights streak away, I feel my skin crease. These are the wrinkles I witnessed, the ones that never come out.