Sitting on the font porch, I hatched a plan
made of bare feet and a glass jar
with three holes punched in the lid.
The night smelled of passing rain,
and my fingers ached to scratch an itch,
so with wet grass between my toes,
and the strength of blood red clods beneath me,
I stood.
Watching until…
one by one they came
filling the yard with constellations;
a thousand tiny, blinking suns.
Into that sea, I cast my net
and like an apple dipped in sugar,
I too sparkled;
my tongue wet with wanting more.
Later, in my room, I poked my feet
outside the covers and lay awake
in flashing neon. There
I thought of how you’d told me of the butterfly
that found her way into your room and stayed.
Grateful for the company,
of several days in pen and paper,
I remembered how your voice shook, just a little,
when you told me that she died and how,
with two hands, you buried her.
Alone.
Somewhere in the garden.
You promised you would show me.
Throwing back the blankets,
I crossed the room on cautious tip-toe,
leaving a trail of fleeting footprints
on the cool and clammy tiles.
At the window, I breathed in and held it.
Swallowing the scent of damp clothes drying,
and the taste of lemons on my fingertips.
Moments later, when sleep found me,
I could almost hear you breathing
somewhere just beyond the crickets,
my fingers still wrapped ‘round
the neck of the open, empty jar.
Once, when I was a little girl, I got into trouble for "talking back to my mother." My brother was arguing with her husband about something that had been lost or misplaced -- both blaming the other for what had happened. My mother, who’d been keeping score with the occasional flick of her cigarette, said something like "Tom never misplaces things" or some other ridiculous blanket statement about him and the ideal quality of his character.
At ten years old, this wasn't the first time I'd caught her in a lie, but it was one of the first times I felt brave enough to call her on it. I said, "How would you know? You're never here." I had not been a part of the conversation, so when she pivoted her head towards me, I could see her teeth clench a bit, her jaw set forward, her chin parallel to her shoulder. Now, thinking back on it, I know she waited for me to look away and begin shifting my weight from foot to foot before finally telling me to get out of the house.
She didn't say "and never come back," but I assumed that was what she meant, so I put on my coat and gloves and boots and marched down to the end of the driveway.
I didn't know where to go next, so I stood there, watching the cars go past -- my toes on the line that marked where my house ended and the rest of the world began. I told myself that when the traffic cleared, I'd move. But it wasn't until it started to rain that I finally made my way across the street to the park, finding sanctuary beneath one of those shelters that smiling people use for weddings or cookouts or family reunions. Eventually, I climbed up onto the stonewall that surrounded the shelter, swinging my legs in the dead space that lived between me and the ground, and watched the rain as it filled the various dimples and imperfections in the pavement, forming puddles and thin, black streams that ran into each other.
I can remember very distinctly, as I watched the rain, thinking about how one day I'd tell someone about this moment: about the way the mirrored tree branches seemed to swell and undulate as each new raindrop penetrated their reflection - cast on the surface of the puddles, or about how, having just read the myth of Narcissus in school, I was too afraid to lean over the wall and look down at my own reflection in the water. I told myself that it was important to remember each moment because one day, I thought, I'll be a writer or a filmmaker or a painter and I'll want to tell the story of the day I left home forever and watched the rain falling in the park.
Of course, that wasn't the day I left home forever and I've yet to become any of those things, but I still remember each moment... just in case.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I imagined you writing a book and me drawing silly things for it... so I did."
Once, when I was a little girl, I got into trouble for "talking back to my mother." My brother was arguing with her husband about something that had been lost or misplaced -- both blaming the other for what had happened. My mother, who’d been keeping score with the occasional flick of her cigarette, said something like "Tom never misplaces things" or some other ridiculous blanket statement about him and the ideal quality of his character.