Barlow Adams

by Barlow Adams My wife’s tracks in the mud mingled with those of the ducks until I couldn’t tell where anything began or ended. From the house to the creek at the edge of our yard and back, a parade of webbed feet encircling the memory of my wife’s careful, deliberate steps, her stride short, the way people walked when they were carrying something precious. Her attachment didn’t bother me at first. I thought it could even be positive after we had to give up the baby.

1.3K I played a lot of basketball the summer after I tried to kill myself. Back in Ohio from college in California, I didn’t work, barely slept. But I played a ton of basketball. Still never got very good. It wasn’t an official league. We weren’t that talented. It was backyard stuff, but as serious as that kind of thing could be. A friend of mine from high school had come limping back from university as well. Back from Texas. Got almost as far away as I did before hitting the wall.

By Barlow Adams Oscar didn’t know why his mom called the big bag of rice in his father’s pantry “The Body.” Oscar was still in his mom’s belly when his grandmother--brittle as a bird, IV sticking out of the top of her hand--dragged it to the front door of his parents’ first apartment and pressed the buzzer like she was ringing a funeral bell. But he’d seen his father carry it from house to house when they moved, always the last thing out, cradled in his arms like the corpse of Christ.