In the Year of the Locust

by Jude Deason

Mr. Hoag wants her roller skates.
He wants to watch them spin,
half-sided, on his porch.

He wants her tender flowered
tea cups.

Only minutes after her bright singing—
“Come Softly to Me,” on the radio
and Mr. Hoag clapping.

He wants to show her, out back,
the rock
rolled on its back,
the underneath
of moist soil and blind crawlers
whining out of the ground
into the trees.

She rolls home
past locust-clamping runs of elms,
body by body brown scab shells,
and in the grass,
their larvae selves.

On a string around her neck,
her roller skate key—silver
feel in her hand
of the turn that tightens.