COVERED OVER Gretchen Fletcher In a past time red clay, like some primordial cookie dough, oozed and folded into layers that baked and hardened to New Jersey hills that passing eons covered over with weeds and graceful grasses. Time passed. Builders of the Garden State blasted apart the hills, exposing stony layers. We pass those hills so fast I can pick the Queen Anne's Lace only with my eyes. In the car we pass the time in silence, afraid our words will blast apart the hills we hide under, exposing our soft cookie-dough centers. We prefer to stay whole and covered with the grace of private grasses.

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