Mother Starr sits on her bench, remembers all the perfect splinters she has removed after all the perfect days watching Hazeline play princess of her wooden Camelot, but when she drops the peppermint ice cream cone on the pavement―once Hazeline's favorite―she watches it melt as the line of ants enter in and out through the cone smothering the cream, until it is eclipsed in a blanket of black wriggling legs.
by Matthew Burnside of McKinney
