Always Good

C.S. Lewis reminds us
that some things
are always good:
a waterfall, a rainbow,
two hands clasped.
Take that away,
and you may never know
that anything can be good,
is always good, no matter
how you look and see.

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A strong wind was blowing, meaning a storm was coming, only it wasn’t outside… something wicked was brewing inside Silas Jones, the young man with the old man’s name, facing down the gun barrel of aging. Lightning crashed into his eardrums as SHE brushed up, ever so slightly against him with a semblance of thunder rumbling in the cavity where he thought his heart had gone missing.

Was this just going to be another missed opportunity, he would allow to slip through his aching fingers or just another cruel joke by the universe rendering his existence the ultimate punchline?

Her tigress eyes were golden flecked burning brightly, the curl of her lips with a malicious or inviting smile (it was hard to tell these days- dazed).

“Sy, how about a couple of rails in stock-room nine and you eat my pussy out like a mad man?”

Followed by the barely audible giggle through the nose and slight presence of hips against pelvis.

She smelled like peaches packed tightly in imitation Chinese manufactured velvet or was it, wet rodent bound with dead butterflies (butterflies feast on corpses)?

He turned around, tinnitus like broken cathedral bells in his left ear in almost utter disbelief but an aside glance delivered by Nancy (being the” SHE” in question) veering on bashful with sinful eyes of malice said otherwise. This was not like when the old lady had asked “Could you, blow me where the hampers are?”

THIS WAS REAL. This could be his feast. His shot at the very least of a sliver at a chance of redemption. An unwholesome deed without consequence.

Then came the squeak, the scuffs and the clicking of sneakers as if they were combat boots. Aqua shoes to be exact, yellow fake space-age soled with purple laces. The enemy with black framed glasses and weasel eyes had arrived.

“Sup, girl, thinking of buying this dress for youngest girl’s first communion.”

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Squatters

ALICIA LETS THE towel slip from her sunburned shoulders and adjusts the goggles. A volunteer secures a number to the strap of the swimsuit, nudging her into a procession of shivering girls dropping off the end of the pier. In the dream the river is cold and muddy, the current swift.

Awake, she listens to the snowflakes rake the side of the house, its spare cedar frame shuddering in the bracing December gust. Somewhere nearby a patch of ice splinters; a fox crossing a pond, she guesses.

In the top bunk, Dougie kicks off his blankets.

“You awake, sis?”

“Count giraffes,” she says. “You like giraffes.”

He goes quiet. Asleep, she hopes.

     “He’s back!” Dougie disappoints, pushing away from the window, dropping to the floor and crawling in beside her. “Take a look if you don’t believe me.”

But Alicia is tired, and Dougie is an imaginative boy. When his breathing evens she tiptoes to the kitchen for a sip of water. She peeks out the window, but sees no sign of – what was it he saw this time? Oh, yes: a little man. A little man who looks like a leprechaun.

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The Forever Snow

I go back to find her, and it’s all different now. Everyone’s changed, the little ones grown, the ones in my heart ancient. They’re not the auburn-haired Jackie-O or the wide-smiling JFK cruising city streets in a mustang convertible playing the easy breezy sixties. They’re the ones I thought they’d never be, the diaper-clad, walker-bound who brace against pain, straining to grasp words that remind them of who they were.

That life behind a dome-glassed snow globe is picture-pretty on a shelf. I shake it, and the flakes dance down, lovely like, but I can’t melt them on my tongue. I cradle the frosty globe in my palm and remember.

I’ve become who they were when they were Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke, forever grown-ups in the living room. But I’m still her, wanting what she can no longer have, wanting what is no longer hers, wanting what was given away. In a garage sale. Pennies on the dollar. Covered by layers of decorating in the shade of apathy. Traded in for Glen Campbell with bell bottoms, loose hips, and fast money.

Careless with the sacred, they let the gypsies in, their aching bellies and grubby hands snatching ours to make it theirs. They, of the new dad, no longer ours. They, of the polished shoes, private schools, and gazebo living.  They, of the ever-changing storefront window. We, of the faceless mannequins, exposed. Shirts off our backs, for sale.

We crowded into a clapboard house with jagged paint, velvet sheen walls and electric blue shag underfoot, distracting us from flimsy instability. It shook when the wind blew. It shook as a reminder of what was. It shook as a reminder of what would never be. It shook when he exploded in rage. It shook when he exploded with desire. It shook when he slammed the door for the last time.

The gypsies have prospered; the colony, whole in its brought-to-you-by-him togetherness. He spilled out his eyes, ears, and steps for them. We are scattered and shattered. Desolation pods. Empty-handed, they come to us, the broken ones, asking for what is ours. If not for him, we’d shutter the store, dismantle the window, and take our mannequins home.

I still can’t find her. The girl. Perhaps she’s inside the globe too. I’ll shake it and see. Or maybe just shatter it and release her from the forever snow.