Russell Walker
Daniel Lanza Rivers
When I remember Russell Walker, I remember him in sounds.
The tsk tsk tsk’s that escaped his lips when he was bored, and the percussion of his fingers against the countertop.
The roar of wind that filled his car as we spent that summer hunting for water—in pools and lakes, and rivers snaking inland from the coast.
The creak of his bed as he craned over the edge with sleep in his eyes to ask about my dreams.
The snap of his father’s voice, the night he caught us together in the basement and called Russell by his brother’s name.
The quiet that overtook him sometimes, like the rest of the world hung at the far end of a long corridor.
DANIEL LANZA RIVERS is a PhD student in English and Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University, where his research explores the relationship between landscape and utopia in twentieth-century North American literature and social movements. His writing has also appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Connu, and Women’s Studies: an Interdisciplinary Journal.
