Jillian Brady

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Pine Street Triptych

I

Swan Dive

Although she was living there, no one ever saw her shoes by the side of his bed or a careless black comb on the table, but they imagined them, how small they must be. “She’s crazy,” he said and everyone shrugged.

So they walked around Boston looking for a place, little steps and talk and they smiled at each other and didn’t care whether it was south facing so long as it had a window. Her round face shining like his sister’s.

Miles later, much later, Boston a dream away, they heard that she jumped from a building in Honolulu and wondered if her tiny body made an impact on the cement and whether it was Hawaii, Cambodia, or them.

II

Cloud

Tyler never returned Philip’s socks. But

Phil cared less than anyone and that bothered

everyone more. Tyler was changeable. One

day he was interested in animation and the

next day the Grateful Dead. And he spent so

much money. When Carli went to her classes

he slept in the car. One day he came to his mother’s

apartment to get clean. She went down to work at the salon

and when she came back up he was dead cold. Maybe

he died of not having any or maybe his half-brother

threw some through the window. Last year, his mother

came to a party at Carli’s house. Everyone said,

“Who’s the blonde?” and skirted the walls glancing

sideways at the parent of vapor.

III

Recitation

He lived on the corner of winch and pine in the basement

beneath his mother’s apartment. “Look,” he said pointing

to her picture on top of the TV, “you can tell she’s native

american.” His father was dead ten years by then, shot and

deposited in a dumpster in fitchburg, an ancient city wound.

They ate cereal standing up looking at his report card,

“It’s impossible to get a 105 in English.” If she went to that

school she could get a 105 too, maybe a 110.

When they left the apartment, they got him too.

Three simple shots and his body deposited on caswell road

and set alight. By the time she got there all that was left was

his jewelry and smoke, which she couldn’t recognize.

Rock Salt Plum Poetry Review                                Spring 2004        

Jillian Brady is a writer and translator living in a

converted funeral home in Amherst, Massachusetts.  Her

writing has appeared in HipMama Magazine, Zwiebook

Literary Journal, The Watermark, Breeder, and A Girl's

Guide to Taking over the World.  She lives with one

kind daughter, two loud birds, an ambiguous ghost, and

a number of itinerant bees.