By Jolie Smith
War
I’ve found many decaying things on the shore of the Great Lakes. Skeletons of char and trout, old forgotten teeth. Once I saw a frozen log in the shape of a giant alligator--his jaw in the air like he was told by god above to swallow the lake. The waves lap my shadow like hands sifting into the nape of my neck, making me long for the trace of her fingers down my back. I try to find it. I spend hours on all fours, so close to the sand that it is my own child. Our child, so wild and ferocious. If I land my belly close enough, I can learn how to love the tiny grains of sand. But love is gone, far gone.
Blanket
My brother loves his blanket. He can’t stop weaving his fingers in and out of the yarn my grandmother bought in 2006. It’s more like a rag now, a rag-like blanket. In 2007, we took a family vacation and a grown man whispered into my ear that he had pictures of little girls in his office. I could be one of them. My brother sat by the pool with his blanket draped over his small shoulders like a cloak, while I avoided my predator and sipped a virgin piña colada. A few years later, at age twelve, I pushed my brother down the stairs. I didn’t but my mother says I did so we all believe her. It must be true. It’s better for it to be true. My brother just screamed for his rug-like blanket and he still does--after school, after guitar lessons, after church. After the bright moon of youth sucks the loneliness right out of him, he looks for his blanket.
Bones
My mother’s backyard is a graveyard of dead rabbits. One died in April of my childhood
during a dog attack. Another spilled out of my arms on Thanksgiving after it tensed up for eternity, becoming a brick of cold, hairy flesh. It was the first time I felt death in my arms. Five others, still writhing in pinky flesh, had a mother who left them on the cold wire. The rabbits are gone now, like me. Their bones are a jungle for root-maggots and worms, while mine pretend to understand the soul. There are heaps of bones to sort through.
Babushka
H&H searched for rainbows in the sand last summer while their mother waited for death. They found a red bottle cap, an orange straw, a yellow shovel, a can of sprite. I’m not sure which end of the world they’re at now. I am not sure if the oldest still puts capers on top of her bagels or if the younger still thinks she’s ugly. I wonder if their father still collects Russian trolls. He shut off the home phone and sent the kids to Chicago. At least that’s what I’ve been told, but I still beat myself up for being so cowardly. Too self-absorbed to do anything but walk by their playground when school is out or go the long way home to drive past the cemetery their mother is buried in. They used to answer the phone when the doctor called. Where’s your mom? And they would say, “Asleep. She’s asleep! But let me tell you all the treasures we found on the shore today.” Sometimes it is easier to not know things, to let them sink in your stomach until it sails on.
Love
Okay. I told her, when I didn’t want to talk anymore. Okay when I looked into the Pacific coast and okay when I summited a volcano. Okay more and more until I wouldn’t be, but then would be again. One day. Soon, because we had been before. We had run to the ocean and loved and held hands for so long that our fingers must have been swimming for hours. Sometimes I think back and wonder how things like this go wrong. Round and round love goes, tearing bits of us apart like peels of a clementine. Do you know what I mean? Of course you do. It’s the love you never think could turn to war. It’s the perfect, golden touching that comes like a gentle fire; the motherless daughters, the cold dark ground, the boys wearing flower crowns--all just searching for treasure.
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