(sigh) today I blew
on a gardenia leaf petal
until it turned brown
16.
That summer, to walk down our street was to be overcome by a sense of hot, sticky dread: Babs in her garden, Pal in his shop, radio blasting, the boy with the bird-in chest beneath the tree, buried, all too serene.
(How do I tell this story?)
“And if you can make yourself into the smallest version of yourself, write that.”
—J.B.
17.
Where there was first a boy with a bird-in chest, there is now but a bird-out chest (a nest) without a boy. And his mother is out looking for him.
Meanwhile, the nest incubates.
(Try an egg.)
“So, what we have now,” said the father to the mother (who’d since vanished), “is a bird-in chest without the body—without the boy, without the bird—so just the nest. And what are these?”
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
“Those are eggs,” answered the mother (who’d long since gone), answered on a telephone; they were states apart. The agreement: never to have to see the other’s face again. Voices were permitted, and certain decisions.
“And what is to be done about the eggs?”
“The grandparents.” The mother, long since disappeared, takes a sip from her solitary bottle. They no longer share, she and the father, the bottles.
“My parents are dead,” the father said.
That’s how it boiled down to the mother. It always seemed to boil down to the mother.
Boiling bottles (sterilizes), long since past, motionless, still frame, taken from the vantage point of the unhatched (the sole survivor, yes; the father ate the others) at its high-chair-level height.
The egg.
It was bad, I knew. I called it “The Egg.” I was outside under the oak tree. Babs was in a flowerbed. “Oh, that’s nice! It’s nice to see you outside. It’s a good tree; nice to sit under.” Across the yard Pal’s shop with the window open: B08.1-The Trolling Motor blared “—always!” and “—always!” again. I think it was getting Babs’s goat. I think she was craving a little quiet.
“I don’t know how you get a thing done with that damn radio playing.” It was the first time I ever heard her curse. She went inside for a little while. I cracked open Sorry, Tree; I had crutched out to the tree and sat under it to read. I couldn’t read a book called Sorry, Tree inside. Right in the first pages, a queer
love scene, and why had I spent all this time reading straight poets? Ms. Poss should have told me right away: Skip to Ginsberg, skip to Myles! I wrote down:
Poetry is queer really, just by nature.
I needed to think about that. I was right: I knew. Poetry’s queer, but I wanted to figure out how, why, I knew it to be so. How, in what way, poetry and queerness are productive.
I wanted it to be more than a feeling. (But why, when feeling had always been good enough for me?)
I jotted down a sentence: “I’m living inside today’s bright edges.” It just came to me, so I let it sit a while. I didn’t quite know why I wrote it or what I meant by it. It wasn’t a poem, really. But I liked it. I thought it might be about sadness, about hiding from it. On the line beneath it, I wrote, “But I’m happy (and it may not be, whatever, but I’m) just waiting for her to come home.” So, today’s prayer for Mom, it turned out. I read it in a whisper. I felt good. I hoped she was on a beach, but not getting her shoulder touched in a way that was condescending, and that maybe if she was having a bad time, at least she was looking forward to coming home.
Babs stepped to the edge of the porch. “Pal!” (“Pow!”) He didn’t hear: He was in his shop: the radio was too loud: “—always!”
“Always! Always!” Babs mimicking the station, “Always!” stomping. She carried an empty ceramic planter in one arm. It shattered against her hip bone while she knocked. “Pal! You have got to turn it down! I just got a call from Mrs. Shivens next door. It’s too loud!”
When he opened the door, she asked, “Are you deaf or something?” She almost whispered it. He looked past her to me, under my tree. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“So embarrassing,” she said.
She stooped to pick up the clay shards from
the doorway. But there turned out to be too
many of them. So she left them there.
I crutched across the yard to Pal’s shop: counted buds on the scuppernong vine: eleven or so, a small crop. “Pal?” On the inside, I heard a bottle clink. That’s how I knew he was drinking. As he put it away, inside his mini freezer-fridge—“Partner! Come on in!”
(Ms. Poss pats me on the back)
Better than what you normally get at a funeral.
(I laugh)
(otherwise, I’m crying)
(we aren’t doing graveside)
He had good taste, didn’t he?
I can see where you get it from.
(I keep crying)
(I’m glad that Mom isn’t standing next to me)
(to see this)
(all hitting me)
I wasn’t really using the chair anymore, but Pal wanted to have it just in case. We didn’t fold it up or even put on its brakes. It was just rolling around back there. Its final buffer, flimsy tailgate, and we had to return it to Luca’s church. Every time there was a loud kerplunk, I gritted my teeth.
“Yes,” I said.
We were on our way to the Chinese restaurant: Babs, me, and Pal. Friday: seafood night: all-you-can-eat crab legs in the buffet line.
“I am going to have crab legs. What are you going to have, Babs?” Babs hadn’t said a word since she broke the ceramic planter. The shards were still there, a little mound of trouble outside Pal’s shop. She didn’t reply to the question.
“What about you, partner?” I sort of wanted him to stop talking, stop trying to make us talk back. It is hard for me to admit right now that I was angry at him. So much time he spent in his own little world, on vacation from reality. Sometimes I swear he
couldn’t see us. The reason he bought Babs chocolate on Valentine’s Day. The reason he thought I was clueless about his drinking.
The radio being off made the chair’s every budge seem loud.
“Chair or crutches, what do you think?”
“I think crutches,” I said. Babs gripped my elbow while I steadied. “Well, I hope nobody steals the chair while we’re inside,” she said, like she was aggravated we’d brought it.
Inside was crowded, and the air was dense, sticky with salt. It made me sweat a little. By the time we got to the table, Babs had ordered our drinks. She ordered waters. Pal asked the waiter if he could have sweet tea with Splenda packets, and the waiter said of course. His name was Christian. He was cute. The whole place smelled like seawater. I felt seasick: I identified that as the feeling. “What can I get you from the buffet, partner?” Pal stood. I didn’t want him to call me “partner” in front of Christian. Christian was cool. Had an earring and glitter eye makeup. I wanted to leave my place at the table, leave my number behind, if you’re single, or open, and if you’re bored … I told Pal just some rice would be nice. He said, “A-OK!” He understood I wasn’t feeling quite myself. He wouldn’t try to convince me. He came back a moment later with white rice in a shallow bowl. I had two forkfuls and felt full. Babs returned with her plate from the buffet: a few small crab legs. “The dregs,” she said. “We might have to go stand in shifts.” Pal polished off an egg roll. “I can go next.” He took a sip from his tea. He hadn’t mixed the Splenda in yet. He made a face. It made me laugh. Christian looked over at us and smiled. Babs sucked the broken edge of one thin leg. “I’m just not getting anything.” Even when Pal took his shift in line, he only brought back small pieces. “People are poaching the line. It ain’t fair.” Babs got up, brought back a plate of rice and chicken. She had wontons. She put one on my plate. “Vegetarian.” I took a bite. “I think it has crab in it,” I said. I set it back on her plate. She rolled her eyes, and when we were leaving, by the register, she put ten dollars in this little clear box with a coin slot and modest pink label:
GAP: Grandparents-As-Parents: A Local Org.
Avery,
(I look up)
(Babs)
Well, can I hug you at least?
(she does)
(she doesn’t hang around long)
(too much hurt)
I love you.
(another goodbye)
(too many)
(she leaves, and Ms. Poss keeps talking)
(I try to listen.)
You know I read every single one of those damn extra-credit responses and … just terrible. I can tell you’re all on Twitter, 24/7.
How can you tell?
Because it’s like words, words, words, words, no articles or compound sentences, just everything smushed together, enough “abbrevs,” as y’all say, to make me hurl. Trying to say the most in the fewest number of words. That’s what it’s coming down to.
Hasn’t that always been the goal, though?
(to say as much as you can in as few words as possible)
(is a strength)
Well, your generation has taken it to new heights.
(Mom, Gia, and Luca find us)
Did you see her?
(they’ve been hiding Mom from Babs)
I didn’t. She must have slipped out.
(it seemed like a better idea to lie)
(walking to our cars now)