“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” the very, very old man said as he sat down across from me on the mid-day bus. “I remain balanced,” he said, “by wearing an equal number of rings on each hand.” He paused to let this information sink in. Then unsheathed his hands from his jacket pockets and, leaning in, rested them on my knees. I could only assume there were fingers underneath the mass of jewelry. “Go ahead and count them,” he said, “exactly the same number on each hand.” He was uncomfortably close to me, but his breath smelled like cough drops, which was somehow reassuring. “Go ahead.” He nodded at his hands that stayed heavy on my knees. The bus rattled on, over potholes around fast corners, and the very, very old man sat perfectly still.…
...continue reading
Because the instructions said a dark cool place with absolutely no sunlight and because the boy and girl were young enough to believe in shadows, they buried the seeds in a shoebox and the shoebox beneath the basement stairs of her parents’ house. Because the instructions said uninterrupted and six to eight weeks and because the boy and girl were young, they soon forgot about the shoebox and the two seeds planted inside and went about growing up. For years the girl grew up pretty. The boy grew up fast and mean and tired of the girl for a time, as boys sometimes do. The girl’s parents were already grown up, so they grew old and grew out of the girl’s childhood home. The boy would remember the girl sadly.…
...continue reading
When they opened/ the tomb of the Chinese terracotta army/ supposedly they were brightly colored/
armored in red and turquoise but only for a moment before the newly introduced oxygen ate away
the paint
The way the old men who live on the plains will talk so casually about drowning surplus kittens/
alongside, when it’s going to snow, and which barbed wire fences need mending
This is the kind of thing/ one would always seek to recapture, don’t you think?
The airlessness,
All those colors, the ghost escaping into the sky
– Izzy Maxson…
...continue reading
From behind a limp curtain the elderly girl detective sees through a row
of windows: a hand petting a cobra, a woman’s shadowy profile, a small
stuffed .alligator. on. a. velvet. cushion. Clues to what?. The secret of life
and death is. only the clock. Down a long linoleum corridor of tarnished
numbers,. a door. clicks shut. .Evening light,. slanted, yellow.. She keeps
her deductions private, a silence filled up with land sakes, imaginary pie
in the. cold oven. .Ghost. granny,. in. worn print.dress,. in. favorite chair.
Who is in charge.
– Martha McCollough…
...continue reading
You used to leave your shoes beside the doorway, letting the season drip off onto the carpet. Now, you walk them off wherever you please, one foot out, one foot in. Sometimes, you grab the wrong shoe out the door, so you walk around mis-matched. You used to bring home honey on Saturdays. A treat from nature. You used to cradle my body to your chest and kiss the back of my earlobe. You used to pull quarters from behind my ears. It’s magic. Now, my ears are un- kissed and magicless. You used to try and bake cupcakes, but you never read the directions, so they were always very dry, and burnt. We would sit with a can of icing and a bottle of wine, eating the cupcakes.…
...continue reading
1986
My sister and her husband called Wednesday and told me Dad had
molested their daughter. Over the weekend. At his house. He was
babysitting her. Another sister told them the previous week that they
should be concerned because Dad had fondled her from seven until she
left home at seventeen.
The four-year-old. . . pain, pediatrician, abrasion, evidence. By law, the
doctor filed a report. My sister . . . he put his pinkie in her, he had her
hold his penis, something thick, like toothpaste, came out. It’s what play
therapy revealed. Pedophiliac. I never knew the word before.
1987
Our father pleaded no contest on two counts of child molestation against
his granddaughter. There will not be a jury trial. We are relieved.…
...continue reading
The ocean dries up when I touch it. Fish and algae disintegrate; every drop of salt water seeps into sand. Emoto says it’s my negative energy, that the waves would rather go bare than be exposed to me. I don’t know the ocean’s feelings. And it doesn’t care to know mine: I’ve given up looking for my notice of its departure. All I know is the little girl inside me, and the apologies I keep giving her. I write sorries in handwriting she doesn’t know as her own. I’m a stranger to her now. Her tiered dresses hang dusty in my closet, gray around the seams. The mole on my forehead mirrors hers, and, to her disappointment, the scar on her fingertip still hasn’t faded. I try to tell her about the science of nostalgia, about sensory stimuli and chronological remoteness.…
...continue reading