SMALL TOWN, AMERICA
Alli Tschirhart

Yes ma’am no sir. In school, we prayed before every football game, the coach hand in hand with the players as amen rings out. Giant pickles wrapped in paper at every single event. Four churches in one square mile. A dog named Bear roamed the streets of town for years before we realized it was a pack of fluffy white dogs all with the same name. Once, through the window of our truck, I saw them, a pride of lions resting after a hunt. We find one on the side of the road one year and collectively grieve for a dog we didn’t really know. An old silo brittle and sharp, roof gone from past storms, we play carelessly, counting down for hide and seek. A vast backyard where we run, wild children screaming and pushing our hands into mud. The sprawling pecan tree in the yard that I spent so much time collecting the nuts from, and then more shelling. The one small bathroom with no windows that we all huddled in as the tornado warning rang out. The worn-out trampoline that my dad would spray in the summer so we could dance with the water, sometimes we would just lay out and watch the stars.