Fence
(Published in Open City, 2002)

I was in the backyard of our new rented house. And on the other side of the fence that separated our yard from the people behind was a bunch of little kids. A babysitter’s bunch. I was four or five and talking to a kid, about like me, through the gray diamond shaped links. “Can you come over and play?” he goes. “I don’t know,” I said, “I’ll go ask my mama.” So I did, and she said, “you know they look close but they’re really far away.”

I remember thinking – does the fence act like a telescope or a magnifying thing?