Two scooter girls in Easter-egg helmets kneel at a suspension bridge edge. Shoulder to shoulder, they spin combination locks, racing to feel the release. Below, a shirtless boy wades into the river. His mother, on a boulder, reaches out. A swallow darts by. Concrete shifts. Cables grind rust into a scream.
*
Through the window of a Wendy’s, a girl holds a white tissue, smudged red. For a moment, you think she’s bleeding. But she’s watching herself in her phone. Full mascara. Lacquered lips. A child, painting a mask. She winces. Lifts her eyes beyond the screen. To the glass. Your gaze—her wound.
*
In a fading mural at Confluence Park, an Arapahoe woman winces through a blanket. A jogger releases a dog from a leash—watches, unmoving, as it flees. In a dry fountain, a pink-haired teen stands before a sculpture of wings. Glancing behind, she unzips her hoodie, then raises both hands in flight.
Harrison Candelaria Fletcher
Harrison Candelaria Fletcher is the author of Descanso for My Father, Presentimiento, and Finding Querencia. His work appears in New Letters, TriQuarterly, Puerto del Sol, and Cimarron Review, and has been cited in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays. An National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, Wurlitzer, and Vermont Studio Center fellow, he teaches in the MFA programs at Colorado State University and Vermont College of Fine Arts.
