1. Her hand on my arm, on my head. "I don't want to go in there," she whispers, "it's too cold." "But if you don't go in there, you'll pee yourself," I whisper back. Her crying on the toilet, her crying at the sink.
2. Back again. This time, in the bed. "I'm hot," she whispers, "and my room's too dark." "Get under," I whisper back, brushing back the covers.
3. "You're too soft on her," he mumbles, his face against his hand, against his pillow. "If you let her stay, you'll be all tired and cranky tomorrow, and then you'll fall asleep again at 9:00." Silence, then the gathering of books, of blankets. His robe. His slippers. His feet on the stairs.
4. Small, cool toes on the back of my leg. Moist, labored breathing. The hour passing, the hour aching.
5. I pick her up. I take her back to her bed. "But I can't sleep," she protests. I give her a book.
6. The creak of the door. The sound of peeing. The creak of the door again.
7. The creak of the door. The sound of peeing. The creak of the door again.
8. The cat. The cat? Her claws on the blanket, and then on my face.
9. This time, more softly, a different hand. "Mom?" he whispers. "I can't sleep." I walk him back to his room. I kiss him good-night.
10. Back again, claiming fear, claiming tummyache. Claiming the night, claiming my spirit, claiming the farthest, most remote galaxies of sleep.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Phonics
This word, an island. Uncharted, viney, but big enough to stand on. And seductive, its siren's song of diphthongs and mangroves. A change in the current, and her ship, built of hard C's, of long E's, bumps and bounces and lurches toward the coast. There's a moment of panic, of salt and reflection, and then she crashes, beautifully, upon the shore.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Beryl
Nobody wants to drive out to the Dinkers', to their house of blue carpet and untuned piano, to their frozen-over pond and drawers of old lipgloss, to their root beer, to their log pile, to their Billy Joel and bathroom fan and muffins and brass. But we will go because we have to, because we are expected, because this, every Christmas, is what we do.
In a turban, with a stuffed Schnauzer named Mallard on her lap, my grandmother smokes in her apartment on Biddle Street, waiting for us to pick her up. She sits by the window, looking out at steeples, at winter, and thinks, without commitment, about Arnie and God. It's hard when it's this cold, when everything's as dreary as newsprint, as porcelain, not to think of Arnie and his nude, drunken death-walk, of how he wandered out and never came in. Arnie was only a stop-gap, only a half-baked, short-term solution, but still. Still, it's strange to think of him in that missing-button Oxford, of him laughing, afterwards, in the bedroom, and then to think of him naked and dead. My grandmother, she doesn't think much about mortality, but this--the fact that she's lain with someone who's no longer living--this is why she keeps the stove light on every night. With effort, she pushes open the window, tosses out the cigarette, and watches as it sinks into the snow just below. This city is so cold, so flat and so dirty that again she wonders why she stays. And then, the silver car in the alley. The beautiful woman digging through her purse in the front seat, the little girl in need of a stuffed Schnauzer in the back.
In a turban, with a stuffed Schnauzer named Mallard on her lap, my grandmother smokes in her apartment on Biddle Street, waiting for us to pick her up. She sits by the window, looking out at steeples, at winter, and thinks, without commitment, about Arnie and God. It's hard when it's this cold, when everything's as dreary as newsprint, as porcelain, not to think of Arnie and his nude, drunken death-walk, of how he wandered out and never came in. Arnie was only a stop-gap, only a half-baked, short-term solution, but still. Still, it's strange to think of him in that missing-button Oxford, of him laughing, afterwards, in the bedroom, and then to think of him naked and dead. My grandmother, she doesn't think much about mortality, but this--the fact that she's lain with someone who's no longer living--this is why she keeps the stove light on every night. With effort, she pushes open the window, tosses out the cigarette, and watches as it sinks into the snow just below. This city is so cold, so flat and so dirty that again she wonders why she stays. And then, the silver car in the alley. The beautiful woman digging through her purse in the front seat, the little girl in need of a stuffed Schnauzer in the back.
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