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asks my brother
to place his hands behind his back,
asks my mother to take her hand off Mike’s arm
as he reaches to his belt for the cuffs.
    “Don’t worry! We’re right behind you!” Mom calls out
when the cops lead my brother to the squad car.
    My parents stand there
a second longer.
Then they turn
to me.

What I Know
     
    “What do you know about this?” Mom asks,
yanking off her robe.
    I shiver, sure as if I’m lying naked in snow.
    I tell her that Kate says rape
and Mike says not.
That it happened at our Slumber
after I went upstairs.
    She grabs for her coat.
“After the big fight?”
    “It wasn’t a big fight!” I yell
as guilt spreads its wings like a falcon,
talons clawing my gut,
digging in.

The Best Trick
     
    When we were small
Mike and I thought
Dad’s friend from college
was better than Houdini,
the way he could make coins
vanish into thin air.
    But now Uncle Nate’s traded his pouch of change
for a law degree and a Brooks Brothers suit,
and it’s my dad who’s on his cell phone
heading out the door, hoping Uncle Nate can make this
nightmare disappear.

Priorities
     
    I should be sound asleep,
dreaming of Brian
sailing me away to Tahiti.
    Instead, I’m staring at the ceiling
imagining my parents at the police station—
warped scenes from Law & Order
playing out in my head—
worrying about my brother,
hating Kate for pressing charges,
and missing my forever-best friend.

Almost Morning
     
    They speak in hushed tones.
They think I’m sleeping.
“What are we going to do?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he says.
    Bedsprings creak, and I picture my mother
propping her back up against the headboard.
“Why would she say such things?”
“Shhh,” says Dad, “lower your voice.”
    But my mother,
the lady with a kind word for everyone,
Kate’s second-biggest fan,
doesn’t lower her voice one bit
when she calls Kate a bitch.

Bad Dream, Bad Girl
     
    I’m screaming at Mike.
Why did you go there?
Why did you go there?
    He squints at me
as if I’m asking
the dumbest question on earth,
and tells me he went there
because I told him to.
    My eyes shoot open
and I remember the last words
I spoke to him before he took off:
Try telling that to Kate .

Unspoken Concern
     
    What was it like
to spend the night in jail?
Was it dirty?
Did you sleep?
Were you scared?
    I can’t bring myself
to ask these questions
as he comes through the door.
    But I wonder.

Wants
     
    Brian hurries to wipe grease from his hands
as soon as he sees me walk
into the diner.
    I don’t know what I look like
but my look
has him concerned enough
to tell his dad he needs to take his break
now
at the height of Sunday brunch.
    He tries to usher me
into a booth
but I shake my head and walk outside.
He follows.
    “Mike spent the night in jail.
Kate pressed charges.”
    “Holy shit!”
His hands fly up to hold the sides of his head
and I can see dried ketchup stuck to his elbow.
    “I can’t believe this,” I say.
    “Neither can I,” he says,
looking at his dad peering out
the glass door of the diner, tapping his watch.
“I don’t think I can get off right now.”
    “It’s okay,” I say,
wanting to be by myself—
wanting him
to not let me be alone.

Something to Cling To
     
    Nothing is steady
except for the feeling
of my camera in my hand.

Then and Now
     
    I spent the first semester last year
trying to figure out
how to adjust the camera settings
to get the right exposure,
how to make a test strip,
a contact sheet,
how to develop and enlarge a print.
I never thought it would make sense
and debated dropping out of class.
    But now my fingers move
over the controls
and my brain knows—
because of the amount of light,
the film speed, the type of picture I want to take—
exactly what I need to do.
    Working with
my manual camera
has become
automatic.

No Escape
     
    Every spot I find to take photos
is a memory.
    The park
across from Shoreview Heights Beach
where Mike played ball—
me and Kate watching the games
from