For no reason I could see, the girl next door was crying in class. Her friend holding her, I thought they were acting, a drama, some afterschool activity I didn’t know about, cutting into the schoolday

she was mumbling and sobbing, her friend started crying and before things could take a shape, the Principal was peeking in from the hallway, angled like Buster Keaton in an avalanche of silence

he took the girls from class. An emergency, her brother’s friend, Skylar, it was Skylar–a name now of great importance–had driven out over the ruts, parked by the pines, fed a hose from the tailpipe

through the cracked window and filled his Bronco with exhaust, sliding down the bucket seat, to choke until prone, head back eyes closed, and in opposition to his catechism, he drifted out

through the pines to become an exhale, a cousin to the clouds.