The young cop says, “Sorry ma’am, you’ll have to wait.” In the strobing red-blue glare he looks like a teenager. Melissa wonders if Tony had looked so young when he started, all those years ago.

The bodies were scattered across the Loyola Park athletic field house grounds. Some of the victims were on stretchers or backboards. Thick smoke swirled in front of the field house and out over the two softball fields toward the playground, the beach and

We’re safe as houses/ and unmoved. We grow/ accustomed to the sound