Pebbles

On weekdays the two walked,
The man in front and the boy always behind,
Away from the borrowed house and the kachina dolls inside.

Neither of them said anything.
The boy thought of things that just wouldn't come out,
and the dirt road was always just wet enough that
The man's shoes would kick up a soft shower of pebbles.

The boy sometimes tried to guess how many tiny rocks came loose
but he never thought he was within reason.

Five.

Fifty.

Five hundred thousand.

At the end of the road the man would walk back alone toward the weeds and
Trinkets.

The boy just watched, and watched and watched.