A Dirt Road, WA

She dreams of climbing to the top of a silo. An ancient structure protruding from uneven dirt and field. One can be in a valley and not even know it, she says aloud. She gives no thought to the silo or its function. Later on she looks back and remembers. She wonders whether it had been empty or full at the time she ascended it and stood at the top. As I gripped the aging later, she thinks, was there a winter’s worth of corn inside? Was there hay for all the cows? Was there simply nothing? What is space when it is enclosed, enveloped by matter? What is space when around it there is a shell? That is emptiness. Once at the domed top of the silo, she looks across the land and feels the way one feels when in a place that shows no signs of being what it is. She knows she is in a valley but cannot see it. The neighbors only pick up static. A woman in a trailer ages considerably in only a year’s time. The father of two small children across the road brings her Epsom salt. The two will die in the same week. All this she sees as she looks across the farm. The river. The falls. A vast expanse of memory. A fabrication of thought that defies the laws of space and geography. It is day but the harvest moon sits heavy in the sky. Suspended conveniently in the background of the scene. The world collapses neatly and folds itself into a tiny square. She places the folded piece of space into the silo, fills it to bursting with one flat scrap. She shoves the silo into the ground with her thumb. The earth does not resist. She fills the hole with the father’s books and clothes and then covers it with some dirt and leaves. She wakes.