How Soft Your Fields So Green
by Chris Antzoulis
My grandfather and his brother,
Pasquale,
lived on a farm in Toritto as children.
They had no shoes
for milling around,
just one pair each,
for occasions
that called for covered feet.
Sometimes their father would ask
for a chicken from the pen
for dinner.
This was before Pasquale died
of sunstroke.
But together,
they would collect rocks
from the field
for their slingshots.
They fired them off,
barefoot in the dirt
of the pen,
at the chickens.
They wouldn’t stop
until a stone struck just right,
and one of the birds went lame.
First published in Madcap Review, 2018.