The night you said god was a DJ the lightning made no sound, but the night birds, they were singing, so I held onto your arm and said just that, the night birds they are singing, just as a bolt so bright scratched the sky that for a moment we could see nothing, were blinded, actually, and for a long time after, there it was, that same sharp hook hovering over us each time we closed our eyes, each time we blinked in the doorway of the old house, already emptied of our things, clutching each other in the warm throb of air, listening for birdsong, and the thunder that never followed.

Alyson Mosquera Dutemple is a writer from New Jersey with an MFA from Warren Wilson College. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for Best Small Fictions. Her work has appeared in Pithead Chapel, Atticus Review, The Puritan, Flock, Pigeon Pages, Fiction Writers Review, and elsewhere. She works as an Editorial Consultant for CRAFT. Find her at alysondutemple.com and on Twitter @swellspoken.