I don't know much about my mother.
What I know is she wanted to be a Barbie Doll dress designer.
The house is sick.
I told the house to stop coughing, to cover its mouth, to shut the hell up,
that my mother would be coming over soon.
I don't know how to swim in this air
so I crawl along the rooms with my eyes closed,
feel out each electrical outlet, count
the crawls it takes to trace each one.
Its a dark Autumn day and all the lamps are turned on to make the house so very bright.
And each room you walk into is so very bright don't you think?
Cynthia calls, says Chuck kicked her out for the last and forth time.
Her cats need a place to stay.
Sure, I say. I have a spare bedroom where the windows are covered
in bed sheets that looks like the galaxy.
Our conversation goes on:
Etsy sales aren't what they used to be, she says.
I've been scrubbing the walls with wool and bleach for four days, I say.
I'll scoop my cats shit everyday, she says.
To make it whiter, brighter, you'll see I say.
I'll really get on my feet this time, she says.
I listen because what else do you do.
There is a long pause on the phone.
Cynthia? I say.
Ralph doesn't call. However I imagine him calling several times and practice my greetings in the bathroom mirror. Hi. Why Hello. Hello to you. Hi there:
Should I say it flat? With an arch? A hi there so smooth and calm like bathwater in a white tub with with white walls, white tiled floor, white mirror and you look out the white window,
which overlooks rolling white hills and white trees on either side catching wind gusts easily so
white falling leaves swirl violently before reaching the white ground?
I'm into pictures of waves these days, Mother said to me on the last trip down south.
It was the most clear and poetic thing I've heard her say.
I want to practice folding my body
like how Mother demonstrated moving arms and legs of Barbie
when I was a girl to properly play with them:
She can hold a purse if you move her hand up higher. She can walk if you
move her legs out. She can sit if you
twist her torso, And in my hand so easily the terrain,
I could almost hear the own hiss to my slither.
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