Flash

Asa is asleep in the sun, arms track-marked and mosquito-bitten, crossed over his chest, his mouth open with a mid-sentence look, teeth, gone or brown, chin stubble flecked with leaf bits. We lean down, listen for breath. He whispers something that sounds like help, and then, he opens his eyes. “Hello,” he says, adding extra o’s.  “A porch is no place to sleep,” our mother says. Asa tells her to make like a tree and leave. “Damn drugs,” she says, followed by “my son” and “junkie.” Asa smiles when she leaves, spits over the porch railing as she backs out