Mound
MOUND
She stands in a dirt field punching the sky. Fists flying. Each swing lands another grain of fury in the growing pile. Clouds billow black and blue, and her screams roll down the empty road like thunder. Children run in houses and slam doors in fear. Dogs howl and pull at their chains. And the woman keeps throwing punches. She hooks a left and a right and then both hands so fast her arms fire fast as machine guns. Every piece of dirt she heaves from her swinging hands is the dirt she has been carrying inside her for half a century. The pile grows tall. So big it cannot be ignored. Trucks pull off the freeway to stare at the mound. The dirt rising from the flatlands. And the woman wringing her hands in the empty field. Sweat pours from her head as the sky dumps buckets from a summer storm. The woman is crying. The woman is laughing. The woman is punching herself silly. Punching herself clean.