Earlier, at dinner, our voices
\nwere missing and only the sound
\nof the knife could be heard scraping
\nagainst the plate after cutting through
\nthe chop, and that sound made
\nthe sweat from my brother\u2019s forehead
\ndrip to his plate. The bucket we brought
\nafter dinner, to the middle school, full of golf balls,
\nwas once a bucket full of paint, and so some
\nof the balls were flecked with red dots
\nlike drops of blood. We lined up, the four of us,
\nmy brothers, my father, and I, at the edge
\nof the field, and swung the clubs made of iron,
\nhard as we could. We hit small white balls
\nthe size of eyes or tulips. We ran after them
\nthrough the un-mowed field like dogs
\nfetching sticks. There was a cutout of a dog
\nin the middle of the field, left to scare
\ngeese away from the grass. We aimed
\nright for it. Black dog. We didn\u2019t aim,
\nwe swung, which is a type of aiming
\nat everything we were, but didn\u2019t mean
\nto be. We cursed each other. We cursed
\nourselves. We took turns. We hacked
\naway the grass with the clubs in our hands.
\nWhen it didn\u2019t go far, we swung harder.
\nDifferent stance. Different club. The air
\nwas wet. Our shirts were sweaty. The sky
\nwas blue. The sky was black. Night rose
\nunnoticeably over the field and the four of us
\nin it hitting and fetching our golf balls
\nand the blaring horns from the expressway
\nbeyond the field grew fainter. I could see
\nthe three of them swinging and then could only
\nhear the iron club cut through the thick grass.
\nSomewhere a light flickered above the lot
\nand somewhere, above our house, the moon
\nnot flickering, but shining steady and white,
\nand inside our plates stewing in the heat
\nas the flies descend to suck the fat away.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Earlier, at dinner, our voices were missing and only the sound of the knife could be heard scraping against the plate after cutting through the chop, and that sound made the sweat from my brother\u2019s forehead drip to his plate. The bucket we brought after dinner, to the middle school, full of golf balls, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[66],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4il","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16514,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16513\/revisions\/16514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}