Far Fever

I sat beneath that white birch tree listening to creatures I didn’t know had names until later when I walked under their music. These became my friends. I named one after the boy across the street who ate a bottle of dark and died. They said he went to Heaven. But I saw him open his wings on a branch in the birch, sat there among the sparrows and shined all afternoon. A single-engine plane winked in the sun and Jimmy smelled like oranges. I sat beneath the branches where my friends were singing and cried.