It has been so bright that even the tops of the sweet buckeyes glisten.
Breaths turn heavy. The grass browns with desire.
The wind does not stir. Sheets do not stay on the bed.
The dog and I count shadows on the wall. Some are shaped like cockscombs.
The screen door needs fixing. A reminder to expect you late
next month.
I stand in the driveway pulling petals as though tearing pages from a journal.
Each thin plate no longer united at the base, but
resting
on my bare feet like a short horned grasshopper on a stalk of wheat.
I whisper your name as I dismember the scarlet corolla.
I imagine your hands on the stem.
On the last night I left you
a Globe artichoke.
The deep lobes, the triangular scales, fleshy lower portions,
the heart—
all resting on your bedside table like a tether on a small bale of hay.
It was an old love
that began in the shadows of the Dogwood trees.
We spent the week combing through the paper leaves
that fell from the pergola.
Leaves curled by the heat, as if they knew all the ghosts that haunted us.
Dear One, you said,
the curve of the Earth needs to be straightened.
So I took my ladder and my hoe and walked North.
One
by one
by
one
the horizon began to mold to my touch.
Afterwards, I went to the garden
and relocated the artichoke to your bed stand.
I thought I saw him in the bathtub. The combination of dirt,
soap, and water created the seamless robe and thorny crown.
I called to T, but he was too busy peeling sweet potatoes
for dinner. I remember hearing that a woman in Florida
saw the Virgin Mary on the side of a grilled cheese she made
ten years ago. And people came from all around to worship
the holy snack as if it were the Madonna herself. I think
about religion often while potting tomato plants or watching
T shave and wonder how someone can mistake the markings
on an apple core for the face of the Divine. On our last visit
to Santa Monica a man held a sign with “Believe in Jesus”
in gray duct tape and it made me remember how softly
my mother recited the Lord’s Prayer as my grandfather died.
The tern is found in a cigar box
with other pieces of ivory
dull and rough, never formed
into their proper shapes.
But the tern is complete.
The curved wings like hyacinth leaves.
The grains of the ivory, curled feathers,
more prominent in the front.
We can tell when my grandfather
carved it by the smoothness of the wings.
His hands could still work the dremel.
His mind could remember the weight of the ivory.
Sitting on the marble steps
of Trinity Church I watch
a piece of newspaper caught
in the wind, and the movement
reminds me how we slept on the island,
you and I stirring like stems
of blue eyed grass before
a midsummer storm,
waking some mornings
with our backs unintentionally,
towards one another.
Sunday morning at the Farmers Market
down the street from the Mobile Station in
the Palisades. Warm sunlight in December,
palm trees cast shadows on the different
produce—pyramids of artichokes with
their triangular scales, the wiry greens
of carrots, cartons of strawberries all
cool in the shade. Flowers in buckets
cream freesias and hydrangeas, black eyed susans
their electric yellow petals and
domed purplish centers. We buy a bunch
securely wrapped in newspaper.
A single golden blossom breaks from
its stem, falls to the pavement.
It will stay there, wilting, among the hurried
shoppers and vendors busy weighing
heirloom tomatoes. We continue
along Swathmore Avenue, pass homes
with bright colored doors adorned
with Christmas greens, big bows and pine cones
painted glitter white. Homes with holiday
decorations in the yard besides birds of paradise.
I wonder if it snowing in Boston.
Folding dishtowels or opening the jar of marmalade.
The seasons changing, a branch,
the absence of bush crickets
brings him back to me.
And when I find the dress at the back of the closet—
memories of black wool and
chrysanthemums, full and white—
I wonder if my husband knows
the constant sadness I feel.
In the city—the maddening beats from street lamps
and shining gutter glass
remembrances of someone other then him.
Thompson Boling is a writer on Nantucket Island. After 7 years marooned out in the Atlantic Ocean, she will be moving to Boston and will be entering the MFA program at Emerson College. Her poems have appeared in The White Whale Review and The Furnace Review.
MINI MAYHEM:
TALES TOLD BY
TOY SOLDIERS
ISSUE:
S U M M E R
2011
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