Street

Road signs, concrete, neighbors’ condolences. Parents clawing at peonies, digging up the front yard as if trying to undo a burial. Child-sized yellow rain boots left on the porch, still full of gravel. A robin singing the child’s obituary.

House

An invitation to come in, front door, light switch. Grandmother in the hallway, fumbling with a pickle jar, asking where her granddaughter is. Mother standing still for the guest, touching under her eye, ashes on her cheek. “She’s playing in the yard.”

Father picking stones out of a plant pot, throwing them at mother. Mother shushing father because grandmother can still hear with her left ear. And they have a guest. And accidents happen but it’s not a mother’s fault. It’s not a mother’s fault.

Father blinks, sees his daughter halfway up a tree. He runs out onto the lawn and yells at the sky, in the yard where her voice should echo, forgetting guest and grandmother. His little girl should be in the house.

Yard

Grass, apple tree, barking dog. House too expensive for yellowing lawn. Woody lilac, lopsided, bowing down to steel pipes trodden into the earth with an angry foot. The humming ground remembers. A makeshift cross leans sideways to mark where a child lies.