Sian is four.
He refuses
to return from the rain–
it’s Friday.
Miss Linda says she doesn’t know what to do,
that I should try because he likes me.
Sian is my favorite.
Fridays, his mother comes “extra late.”
(Once, on a Friday, Sian walked off. I found him
at a burger place a few blocks away.
Someone had bought him fries.)
Sian is fine in his slicker and the rain
has subsided, but I say anyway,
“Come in Sian. You’re getting wet.
Miss Linda is worried for you.”
Sian motions for me to come out onto the patio.
“There’s a boy with no head,” he whispers
crouching near a shrub.
I kneel on the pavement
and look beneath.
“Here,” he says, surprised that I’ve missed it.
Beside his finger, hanging on a branch
from a single thread of spider silk,
is the tip of a dead sprig fallen
from the cypress above.
It has the vague shape
of a child’s torn body.
A large drop gathers on the leaf above
until its full weight
pulls it down the thread
and past the headless boy.
The boy spins.
“He dances when it rains,” Sian whispers.
And I hope the silk is strong.