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"Lamentation: School Bus in Morning"
They say this is normal, the calm he had about leaving for kindergarten, his desire to take the bus. She saw his foot against the backdrop of the door, and then only a vapor trail.
If the toilets hadn't run, hadn't made gurgling sounds, pressing against the crevices of her innermost ear, she would be wild with worry over the child, her small child, his crayons on the chair, his books smelling of dusk and smoke.
The uneasy creaking of the empty house--the inside, black and crenellated, drawn out like geese against the clouds, the inside, new with emptiness, comes out against the outside.
Instead, the toilet, and then the fall rain. So much rain she forgot about the child leaving, about how like screaming the rain came down.
--Margo Stever
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