Where the Crawdads Sing

She hesitated; touching someone meant giving part of herself away, a piece she never got back.

In the mountains, she noticed, the time of sunset depended on where you stood on the hill.

She laughed for his sake, something she’d never done. Giving away another piece of herself just to have someone else.

She knew that no part of this yearning made sense. Illogical behavior to fill an emptiness would not fulfill much more. How much do you trade to defeat lonesomeness?

Truths everyone should know, yet somehow, even though they lay exposed all around, seemed to lie in secret like the seeds.

“Sunsets are never simple. Twilight is refracted and reflected But never true. Eventide is a disguise Covering tracks, Covering lies. “We don’t care That dusk deceives. We see brilliant colors, And never learn The sun has dropped Beneath the earth By the time we see the burn. “Sunsets are in disguise, Covering truths, covering lies.

“All along You thought The fiery current Of your lover’s breast Pulled you to the deep. But it was my heart-tide Releasing you To float adrift With seaweed.”

The notes floated with the fog, dissipating into the darker reaches of the lowland forests, and seemed somehow to be absorbed and memorized by the marsh because whenever Kya passed those channels again, she heard his music.

As she pushed off, she knew no one would ever see this sandbar again. The elements had created a brief and shifting smile of sand, angled just so. The next tide, the next current would design another sandbar, and another, but never this one. Not the one who caught her. The one who told her a thing or two.