Missing
It was the summer an IU student had disappeared
off the sidewalk and been sucked into the night air
of our town. Before leaving for college ourselves,
we beached Camille’s pontoon boat one last time
on Lake Monroe. We hurried down the sandstone
until our chipped crimson toenails teased the water—
that black lapping edge where we shed our clothes
and waded in until our limbs floated up,
buoying our milky torsos in the moonlight.
Later, cocooned in damp sleeping bags, we woke
to howling that grew louder, closer, then morphed
into a yipping frenzy. It wasn’t the wild dogs
but Sav’s question—what if it’s people pretending
to be coyotes—that sent us scrambling back
to the pontoon, unrolled sleeping bags clutched
beneath our arms. The moon bright enough
we didn’t argue about who held the flashlight.
Camille pushed the boat from shore and assigned us
to stump patrol—the lake low that year, the engine
at risk of stalling if we got stuck—so we peered
into the water, wary of any dark shape on that slow-
motored journey. Fingers clammy, we clove-hitched
thick ropes around the dock’s metal bollards,
and we crept into the un-air-conditioned house.
We were careful not to let the screen door crash closed
before we tip-toed across the creaking oak floors
and climbed into Camille’s unmade bed. Our sweaty
limbs a mess of tangled warmth like a pile
of worn-out puppies. I murmured goodnight, my eyes already
shut, then felt someone shift and heard the window
shoved open. The smell of lake-loam drifted in. The humid
air settled on my skin like a summer-weight blanket—
comforting—though that season lingered, mildewed, still burdens
our hometown: a tally of days, years, with no news.
