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release 8.01 may, 2007 |
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MOM -- after Youth Dew - two (morning) by Valerie Parks A hot, windless, day. Trees, bushes, all forms of vegetation stand immobile. People move slowly down neighborhood and business streets, greet one another with grunts, half formed sentences. Pets slump beneath porches, foliage. There are no birds in the sky. Sun, barely visible behind thick clouds, bulges with moisture. A boy lies in bed, eyes closed, guesses the time before opening them to his wall clock: nine minutes early. Yesterday he was off by just four. Out of bed, he brushes his teeth, makes a late morning sandwich. The day's thick heat and stillness signal an oncoming storm. He is eager to visit his fort, where he can watch the sky and ocean respond to unstable conditions. First he honors a promise to his mother: retrieve clean clothes from the laundry. He climbs onto his bike (hand brakes, basket, bell, slightly dented frame), a recent birthday present. Noting the swollen sky, he rides faster. Today the two laundry workers, who have unaccountable smudges along elbows and backs of their white uniforms, provide him with a tarp to protect his sack of clean clothing, and a complimentary bottle of water. The older worker bends down and whispers in his ear, "We promised your mother we would tell you to ride straight home, and not visit your fort." The boy reddens, nods, fits the bundle into his basket, rides to the forest, follows the long dirt path all of the way inside, parks his bike beneath the tree that holds the fort, makes sure the tarp tightly covers his clothes, climbs the ladder. He looks out at the cloud filled sky and still ocean, breathes deeply. After some time he eats his sandwich, drinks his water, decides to add berries from bushes below to his meal. He climbs down the ladder. When his foot reaches ground, a bright, shiny, object appears on the pine needle covered forest floor. "First it is not there and then it is," he says to himself. He squats, brushes aside needles and dirt, sees that the object is a large key, not the kind used to unlock something, but a piece of jewelry. He asked for jewelry on his birthday, but got a bicycle instead. Holding onto the ornament, shaking slightly, yet uncontrollably, he wonders and hopes, "Can I keep it, can I wear it?" Scanning the forest floor for some clue to this ornament, perhaps even its chain, he sees, next to his bike, a wooden box. "Again, first it is not there and then it is," he says. He tries to open the box but finds it sealed. Guessing the chain for the key is inside, he throws the box against a tree. Nothing. He throws it down hard on the ground. Nothing. He stomps on it with his feet (bare, rough, hard). Two stomps smash the lid. Fingers trembling, he pulls the pieces of the box top apart to look inside. There, a magnificent gold chain. Coiled amid its thick links, brown, glistening, long lashed, red lipped, a snake. It, in a flash, stretches for the boy, plants a kiss on his thin brown cheek. "Mom," the boy says, agitated, rubbing off the lipstick smudge. Then, softly, he repeats, "Mom, Mom, Mom." |
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MOM by Lynn Crawford |
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