2002 (When Ryan Dies) by Kindall Fredricks
We are moon-smacked cheeks all sugared up
with candied Presbytaria and boys’ names stranding
tooth to tooth like taffy When we tangle our bodies
around the collective love letter to Ryan the silver legs
of the desk are as cool as peeled fruit against our skin
still brandied with sun from PE Ryan sits next to Tanav
a name Mrs. Liam flicks from her mouth with an ear-
tipped smile Who delivers it? We are supposed to
laugh at Tanav when he stubs his tongue on redcoats
at the way his shirt gums “M cha l Jack on” and blurts out
his beany elbows Do you think we’re cute
Circle yes or no A feathered dart twirls in the chest
Kari willows the R in Ryan her wrist weightless as it brushes
across the paper untangling his name from the pencil
Mrs. Liam hovers over Tanav as we pretend to recite
the pledge of allegiance but really we’re mouthing lyrics
to a song we can’t hear The room is powdered with it
a slipped sleeve floss in the sea falling into the sky
The next Monday, all we think about are boys
Boys metabolized by the woods they’ve always played in, fall air tinkling their rock-sugar bellies
and popping their glazed polymers to shake loose their sweet dust. They were all
invited to Ryan’s party, but Aaron had shingles. Six boys whimming tree to tree, roots jittering
with the fuss of their Vans. The tips of their ears must have been pinched red with cold. The
tabby leaves must have rubbed against the static of their voices. They must have plucked them from
their jackets. The ground may have known first may have been tender—drawing Ryan
away from the curling of his body like familiar, gloved hands. If the bullet had hit the bird
if the bullet had hit the bird
if the bullet had hit the bird, it wouldn’t have made any more sound than it did exiting Ryan’s
temporal lobe, igniting a flue of images reimagined as infrasound:
A lemon zippering the cheeks The grubbing of infant nostrils, dilating with the smell
of his mother’s breastmilk The clatter of someone else’s hand The scrape of shame when his
cousin ate lunch alone. In the milliseconds before the bullet—
Tanav may have felt aerated with the thrill of citizen he didn’t mind its crude bulk
the disappointment his father would feel if he heard Tanav say gunman instead of petroleum
engineer or how he slicked back Karachi with bombs instead of parks When the force of the gun
rattled through his bones It may have even made his body hum with a song
about act like summer walk like rain about the color yellow
Kindall Fredricks is a practicing registered nurse and an MFA candidate at Sam Houston State University, focusing on both poetry and the intersection of literature and the medical sciences. Her work has appeared in WomenArts Quarterly, the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Badlands Literary Journal, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, NELLE, and the Academy of American Poets.