behindtheax

Certain things

I remember clearly
Like a blue leather coat
with a faux fur trim
A belt tied snuggly
Making her waist small
She was probably fourteen
Sailor boy no longer whispering too her
From the stone steps of the grotto
With its dispersion of broken glass
And Mary all but worn level
Open arms with no hands
A face with no features

The grotto was next to the Mount
where she delivered the Saturday paper
to the old people – following them into their rooms
as they shuffled to their night stands for their coin purse
thick fingers searching the contents for the dime they owed her.
I waited at the doorway, beneath cross or palm
The smell a fusion of things
None of it good. She called it the waiting to die smell
and would stand unyielding in the midst of it,
the large canvas pack hanging over her shoulder like a folded wing,
waiting as an angel would wait

sometimes she would turn to me and smile
producing a dimple the depth of a nickel

She made me believe in tree witches
had me laying out my best Barbie doll clothes
Between the ruts of root
an offering she said– so they wouldn’t sneak into
our bedroom at night and remove the blacks from our eyes
with a sewing needle.
She had a head like that
Where spies also followed us to school

Even grown her reality was questionable
what happened and what really happened
but I know for sure when
she was sixteen she made love on
the banks of The Little Damn
with the cutest guy in high school
I was both horrified and fascinated that she
could so willingly risk hell and heartbreak
for a moment of abandonment

He moved to Ontario shortly after
Taking his blue eyes and her heart with him
The pretty coat she loved – also long gone
The grotto torn down, safety reasons
The old people became the new old people
The old mount became the new mount
Bricks instead of beige stone

Only the tree witches remained

And up until she died
She slept every night with the light on

posted by mary j. @ 6:29 PM