That upstairs window has a woman in it, or a dress form. That door is falling off because a deer walked right up the porch steps and knocked. I don’t know much about the town of Beason, except what I’m not saying, but I know enough to bite the hand that feeds me this mango, its hard pit knocking against my teeth a modified Morse code for love. It's possible he'll leave me here in Beason at this little lake when I turn to drop my empty cup in the rusty can; he’ll run off in his car, abandon me to the geese. If he does, I can walk determined up the road to the nearest mailbox and right on up the porch steps to knock, wild-eyed and alive.

KATHLEEN KIRK is the author of four poetry chapbooks, most recently Nocturnes (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2012), and is the poetry editor for Escape Into Life. Her work appears in The Greensboro Review, Nimrod, Oklahoma Review, Menacing Hedge, and the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.