Near Taurus
By Dawn

After the rains had come and gone, we went down by the reservoir. No one was watching, or so it looked to us.

The night was like to drown us.

Our voices were high—his, mine; soft, bright—and this was not the all of it (when is it ever?).

Damp palms, unauthorized, young: We would never be caught, let alone apprehended, one by the other.

He was misunderstood; that's what the boy told me.

"Orion, over there. Only the belt. The body won't show until later," he said. "Arms and such."

Me, I could not find the belt, not to save my life, I said.

Flattened with want: "There is always another time," he said.

He died, that boy. Light-years! Ages and ages. And here I am: a mother, witness, a raiser of a boy.

I could tell you his name.

I could and would not.

"Here's where the world begins," he'd said. I see him now—unbroken still; our naked eyes searching for legends—the dirt beneath us parched.

Next: Read Mark Leyner's Ad Infinitum