206 292
Christopher Kloeble
206
Anni and Mina
Anni didn’t realize she’d set
our house on fire. Her eight-
year-old’s mind screened
her from the knowledge. It
rejected the truth for her
own protection, as Anni
herself rejected so many
things. As the months went
by, she practiced shaking
her head, training herself,
whenever other children
called on her to play with
them, or at lunch, when
somebody suggested eating
a littlemore. Or after her First
Communion, when Farmer
Egler asked her in a whisper
whether she was interested
in the closely guarded secret
he kept inside his pants. And
oneday,when shediscovered
my
I love you
carved into the
winding root onWolf Hill and
asked herself who’d written
it and when, she shook it as
if she never wanted to stop
again, left and right and
left, with raised chin, staring
eyes, and white lips pressed
firmly together, locks of hair
whipping against her cheeks,
wiping the world away.
When
winter
came,
our
burned-out
house,
surrounded by snow, looked
like
a
black-and-white
photograph. She went there
looking
for
something,
without knowing what.
Something pretty, small,
familiar, something to press
against her breast and
cherish. She poked a stick
through the mound of ashes,
whipped it at rats, wrote
Mama and Papa and Julius
with it in the soot. On each
of these forays she pocketed
something. A collection of
Most Beloved Possessions
accumulated in a basket
under her bed, which she