The Boy on the Wall

I.

The bucket is empty again, which is the usual state of the bucket, though I keep bringing it down as if this were the year the flats decide to be generous instead of honest.

My grandmother never called it luck when it filled. She called it the mud remembering its manners. Most days it forgets. That was allowed too.

II.

There is a boy on the wall who comes to watch me, the way I used to watch her, not understanding yet that nothing here is really about the bucket. He asked me once what I was looking for. I told him the truth, which is nothing, and watched him decide I was being modest when actually it was the only answer I had.

III.

She died in a room with no view of any of this, a plain hospital grey that had nothing honest in it, and I did not bring her anything from the flats because I could not think what would not sound foolish, a stone, a shell, an empty bucket held up like an argument.

I bring the boy down instead, now, some Sundays. I let him carry the bucket even though it is empty. I tell him that is not the point of the bucket. He does not believe me yet. He will. The tide will teach him faster than I ever could, the way it taught her, the way it is teaching me even now, standing here, still not finding anything, still coming back tomorrow to not find it again.