My father-in-law built an observation tower. A house on a knoll, the starry sky unobscured. I gaze at Capella and then at the lake. My friend has a phobia of birch forests instead of one of spiders or heights; we’re all a little wary of a nighttime lake. Brother and sister wed, the earth swallowed the church, a lake was formed. Nothing so impressive has ever happened here. They say the neighbor-woman ate match sulfur and dove into the water. I much more readily stare at Arcturus above the rubble of the woman’s home.