Flight

      Amanda and I scale the hill that marks the end of my back yard. Our tiny hands pluck rhubarb plants from the freshly watered earth. Holding out the umbrella-sized leaves we bound back down the hill flapping with all our might. When the sun dips back to the earth we have nothing to show but twenty pairs of failed wings. We stick them, stems first, back into the dirt hoping they will grow again. That was the year Mrs. Murray put a fence around her garden.