Stephen teaches dodgeball. Clement takes them sailing
on windy nights with weights tied around their necks.
When they are whipped overboard and thrash
like a silver net of fish emptied into the sea,
he cheers them on. Lucy leads games of hide-and-seek
through echolocation. Catherine’s cycling trips
are old favorites—her in front, a blur of long legs
and a big white hat trailing ribbons, with them straggling
in twos and fours behind. The red-haired girl who topples
first stays properly hushed as the group peddles over
her prostrate form, even when her cheek tears open.
Lawrence holds his cooking class in the mess kitchen,
where they learn to fry eggplant, onions, and hands.
Sebastian helps them crack bats into each other’s ribs.
The last day is parents’ day. They all sing the camp song:
We strive toward freedom like our fathers in chains,
we ask for faith sweet as the blood of the slain.
Bartholomew gives out sashes fresh from the tannery
and Agatha tacks pins to those who won Best Athlete,
Best Crafter, Best Comforter of the Junior Campers.
There is a moment for the mothers to photograph
their children on the risers. The red-haired girl laughs
at the flashes, stretching her scar into a second smile.
Then Joan comes with the torch, and silence falls
as they stand straight and brittle with bared heads
allowing themselves to be lit, one by one
until the room thrills with prayer and smoke.
Anna Kelley is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Syracuse University. She is a reader for Salt Hill and moonlights as a skater for Assault City Roller Derby. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cherry Tree, Chagrin River Review, CICADA, Fourth & Sycamore, and Cellar Door.
–Foreground Art by Claudio Parentela
–Background Art by Thomas H