The Corduroy Mtn. Prizes For Losers Jennifer Pieroni One resignation after another brought my brother and me to this place, the specific crumble in a stone wall leading to the field. With cigarettes, he had lured me down from the eaves and into the afternoon. He carried a rusty knife to bushwhack the grass. His growth was stunted; neither of us played in leagues because what was the use? We smoked in the valley, the Monarchs dead on goldenrod like oversized ornaments, all of the grasshoppers still itching. He flicked his lighter over the grass and lit multiple fires. When they joined, we moved back. I said, "Put that out," nodding at the house on the top of the hill. We stomped it out black. "If they see you, say you are in terrible danger," he said, racing me, my thighs fatty and tight, loose and flexed, like this was what it felt like to run for sport. My breathing so uneven, my mouth must have opened to the grasshopper, cheeping, that flew up to my roof and hit the very bony top. previous | next Added to The Corduroy Mtn. on January the Fifteenth in the year two thousand and nine.