America 2025 by Kelly Fordon

America 2025

I have made enemies. My neighbor
just wrote to tell me all my suppositions
are wrong, that she somehow knows
better. Here we are, living in rural America,
with access to no one of any import. What
are we on about? Well, there’s my son,
for one–his safety. Also, the folks who run
the Mexican restaurant–the only good one
in town. What of them? And the eagles
circling now; searching for sustenance–back
when I was young, they were almost done.
My neighbor wants to drill under the lake,
and that’s the least of her infractions.
All week, I’ve planted myself in the window.
It’s January 2025 in America. We’re living
through a deep freeze. The only people
I’ve talked to since Monday are the waiter
at the Mexican restaurant and the librarian
as I was checking out Bunk by Kevin Young.
No news, no radio, no humans. I’ve started
to go mad. A little. Desolation. I don’t know.
At least I have the window. Monday went by
like the hours leading to an execution. On Tuesday,
I sat down in the window again. A few epochs in,
a red fox appeared, light-footing it over the ice—
so close to the edge. How she was managing
sub-zero temperatures—I can’t fathom.
Let me tell you what I did—so lonely, so
unnerved, still reeling, I ran for the door and
opened it wide. Hello, Fox! I yelled. Hello!
Of course, I scared her. She took off fast.
Soon, she was out of sight. It was a mistake;
but in the whole scheme of things,
one of the minor ones. I know she’s
out there now, and it helps. I’m not alone.
We’re not alone. I watched a small red fox
get the best of it–remember that next time
you’re facing down ice.

*

Kelly Fordon’s latest short story collection, I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020), was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, Garden for the Blind (WSUP), was an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, an Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House (Kattywompus Press, 2019), was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. It was later adapted into a play by Robin Martin and published in The Kenyon Review Online. Her new poetry collection, What Trammels the Heart, will be published by SFASUPress in 2025. She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts in Detroit and online, where she runs a fiction podcast called “Let’s Deconstruct a Story” at https://letsdeconstructastory.substack.com/