Fallout Read Online Free

in front of a bus.
    Some people phone
leave messages
    I heard what happened
    I’m so sorry
    If there’s anything I can do...
    Do what?
    Hand us fresh tissues
    when ours are so wet
    they shred?
    Do what?
    Pat our backs, nod sadly
    say, Tomorrow’s tomorrow will be
easier.
    Or are you thinking of practical
things:
    dusting the family photographs
    or maybe sorting through my
sister’s clothes
    to see if something fits your daughter
    because obviously Hannah’s stuff
won’t fit me.
    What a shame to waste such pretty
things.
    Some bring
    food that freezes well
    lots of cheese and potato
    too many calories
    or sweet beyond belief.
    Others hide
    behind the safe walls
    of distance and time.
    I heard the news
    but thought it best to leave you
alone.
    So many people know
    our business.
    So many forms to sign
    payment plans to think about.
    How can it cost so much
    to put someone in the ground?
    Don’t you know that sixteen-year-olds
    don’t have burial plans?
    What if we can’t pay?
    What should we do with her?
    Stash her in the basement
    until she gets fed up
    and moves on?
    In the recycling box
    a headline
    and a photograph:
    An ambulance
    pulling away from the curb
    the empty bus waiting for a
new driver.
    I free the newspaper from the blue
plastic box
    to save Hannah from strangers
    stop her from being shredded.
    She must not disappear
    with all the other news of the day.
    They lean back in their chairs.
    â€œWow,” Maddy says.
    Ebony nods. “That’s a good one. Powerful. All these Hannah poems are powerful.” She takes a swig of coffee. “No offense, but I can’t decide if I wish I’d known her or I’m kind of glad I didn’t.”
    How am I supposed to take that? Maybe I should add a couple of lines to the poem.
    Then Ebony says, “Get rid of the first two lines. You don’t need them.”
    I reread the opening.
    I fainted when
    it sank in what Hannah had done.
    â€œShe’s right,” Maddy says.
    The lines disappear with a strike of my pen.
    They say Hannah probably had a drinking problem. I think of this every time I pour myself anything stronger than a cup of tea with honey. Her secret drinking was only one of so many secrets. How could we not have known?
    Out here on the balcony of my tiny apartment it’s still muggy at two o’clock in the morning.
    There’s an empty garden chair beside me. I imagine David sitting there enjoying a beer. If I close my eyes I can almost hear his slow, steady breathing.
    David sitting in the empty chair may not be likely, but it is possible. I can’t say the same thing about Hannah. Why do I torture myself by imagining her beside me? I do it all the time. Sometimes Hannah laughs and goofs around and tells terrible jokes the way she used to. Sometimes she tells me about school, her return to riding, some new boyfriend. The details are different every time. It gets harder and harder to picture what might have been. Would she have gone to university to study sports medicine like she’d always planned? Might she have fallen in love and had a baby? Or bought a Great Dane? She always wanted a dog.
    â€œYou want to hear a poem, Hannah?” I ask the empty chair. I raise my glass in her direction. “No, this time it isn’t about you. I wrote it a while back, before I left the coast. Yes, it’s about David. Too bad you guys never got along.”
    I speak softly, as if I really am confiding in my sister.
    Leave him, cut him loose
    send him
    into his bright future.
    Look at me. Twenty-five pounds more
    miserable, sucking back the booze
    lusting after double chocolate-chip
cookies
    Extra Crisp potato chips
    whipped cream waffles and bacon
sandwiches.
    Look at him, looking at me, thinking
    he’s stuck with twenty-five bonus
pounds
    of difficult to swallow.
    Leave, and we can finish falling
    land where we will land
    broken or bent.
    I’m tired of trying to fit two