Disarming
The cactus looks especially prickly
which makes me want to touch it
more. The terra cotta pot looks just
like the terra cotta crayon I remember,
or maybe burnt sienna. When I see
the tiny spider lowering onto the table,
I hold a cup out, and the spider drops in,
cooperates. There cannot possibly
be more clean forks, I think, but when
I open the drawer, there are four, the
tray is full of clean utensils. The drawer
opens and closes, I am playing the
violin in my kitchen. I don’t check
the bus times, and I don’t rush,
and I see it a few blocks away when
I reach the stop. A twelve-year-old
boy glows when the teenaged girl
sits next to him on the bus, he reaches
to help her with her stroller, stares
adoringly into the sleeping baby’s face.
Aww, what’s her name? She’s just
so cute! The girl’s irritation melts
from her features, a wave flattening
into glittering ocean. Fantasy, she says.
Oh, Hannah. I love this scene that you've woven. So full of color and light.
ReplyDeleteagain!! you do it again))) the whole poem but this line particularly,
ReplyDeleteI am playing the
violin in my kitchen
(i think back to american thanksgiving and how arvo part was playing large music just in my kitchen while i played along with my big knife sharply against the board, dicing stubborn turnip. you play, too, every time you write a poem.)
xo
erin
What a wonderful picture you have painted. And the whole interaction between the boy and the teenage girl -- the last word sums up her life, doesn't it. VERY well done.
ReplyDeleteYou had me until a 12-year-old boy starting oohing and aahing a baby.
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell not make our fantasies real by naming them?
Thanks, everyone.
ReplyDeleteBill, I didn't know what to make of that moment, the boy and the baby and the girl he was trying to flirt with...it was so odd. He practically melted about the baby, and I didn't think it was for show....it was such an odd reaction for a boy of his age to be so....gushing and sweet to a baby.
I love witnessing moments like that, when someone's earnestness threatens to shatter the jaded prism I use to view the world. heheh.
ReplyDeleteI love buses probably because I don't have to ride them all the time. Little worlds of crowded hope. Thank you for your incredible writing.
ReplyDeleteQuite an image you have here! Beautifully written :)
ReplyDelete