Big Boy Graveyard, by Elijah Sparkman
At night, that night, in the Big Boy Graveyard, rabbits played cards underneath the holographic moon. There was a squirrel, too, that scampered. And a fox. And an owl. And all the Big Boy statues that lay in that field smiled unceasingly, a hollow purgatory, a big jumbled picnic table fable of a mountain. Me and you, when we drove down there on Halloween, we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. The hickory smoke sound of your playlist. The closing of your car door. The way I held your hand while you held the flashlight and the darkness held onto us. I said your name and you said mine. Did you hear that? Did you? The Big Boy statues in the weeds. Cattails and cracked vowels. The mini-moon eyes of love, of deer abounding. Big Boy, did you hear that noise? Because it was hard to believe that he couldn’t. Look at him. His ears are so big. His cheeks are so modest. His custard dot of Elvis hair, the cutest little sweep. Why do you think this is here? Somebody. I don’t know. They probably didn’t like Big Boy. How many do you think there are? Too many. But, I suppose, just enough for Halloween. Do you want to get out of here? Yes, let’s do it. I thought you’d never ask. There is so much moonlight. So many trees. So much not-home. So much us, tonight.
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Elijah Sparkman is the Detroit Programs and Volunteer Coordinator for 826michigan. He is a Teaching Artist for The Moth. He is a Memoir Reader for Split Lip Magazine. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Eco Theo, Cheap Pop, and BULL.
the museum of americana: A LITERARY REVIEW 