The next few practice sessions were marvels of focus. The band cut down on its smoke, its beer runs, and began to resolutely practice parts at home. Carl refined his chord voicings; I practiced the fast runs over and over again; The Big Man put a new battery in his metronome; Thomas gargled saltwater, did daily warm ups, consulted his old choirmaster about vowel placement; Jim busted open the Well Tempered Clavier. The night before the performance even Cosmos arrived on time.
The ticket machine near the entrance spews small white rectangles imprinted with red numbers. Behind the counter, the five women weave around one another in a silent ballet that belies the frenzy. No one, especially not the customers, is to see just how frenetic the pace is. Boxes are pulled from the stack, folded without even looking, lined with a sheet of waxed paper, and filled with eclairs, Napoleons, streusels, prune danishes, raisin buns with swirls of sugar icing, crumb buns. The variety seems endless.
I don’t want to think of the basement with its hard underbelly
and exercise equipment shivering in one corner,
the leaky faucet that kept my sleepovers awake,
the fluorescent lights that buzzed and suffocated bugs.
A text from my mother— My
heart bursts with love for you. I can physically
feel it. And my cats stand watch
in the window, linked to the lizard’s every twitch.
The main restroom door suctions open. Lucy finishes up and flushes, standing as close to the stall door as possible. A flushed toilet, she has read, can spray a cloud of aerosol droplets three feet in the air. She waits for the woman to slip inside the other stall, but instead hears water running, paper towels yanked out of the dispenser. The woman, she realizes, is crying. Christ, Lucy thinks, how can she get out of here?
I remember the night Stan died because it happened while me and Gert was playing bingo. I picked Gert up at her house like I always do, and after bingo she asked me to come inside, said she wanted to show me the pink toilet paper cover she crocheted for her bathroom. As soon as we walked in the front door, we saw Stan slumped at the dining room table, his bald head face-down in a bowl of chili.
I looked at my buddy, her husband, who sat beside his wife listening as she said “my husband” over and over again, each time not referring to him. He didn’t look angry or hurt, he just sat there, pushing the last vestiges of his meal around his plate, enduring it. I wondered if it was the first time he’d ever heard that story.
Al stared at him. Ray tried to ignore him, but Al didn't look away. Eventually, Ray sighed in defeat and turned to face him. Webs of deep wrinkles framed the sun-baked skin around Al's grey eyes, and a deep frown formed under his unruly beard.
"You didn't come here to sightsee, did you, son?"
Cajun Spice came to a dead stop, which, he kinda sorta had to, if we are being totally honest, what with the road coming to that Dead End like it did, which also, though, surprised him because he’d missed the yellow, diamond, Dead End sign, but also because of the Panther just there, stalking back and forth, in front of the fall-down tree which once probably stood proud in front of Mac-O-Lac’s house there, at the end of the Dead End, which Cajun Spice had had no intention on visiting, but he’d gotten lost, and then there was the panther, so here we are.
I won’t nudge you
into romance. I know
the flowers are shining
in my eyes like honey.
I can resist him no longer, so I unlock the attic chamber with a key on a loophole. It dangles like a bell. He neither jumps or starts at my grinning face. He stands chained to the four poster bed, lost and cavernous as a beached ship on unknown shores. This is exactly how I like him.
It is a beautiful day full of friendly townsfolk sharing a moment together
I am the outsider in this storyline, so I am lost before the opening credits stop.
I enter stage left into the coastal town scene.
Will J. B. Fletcher be able to help me find my long time absentee self-worth?
An artist
erased,
clam without
a shell,
closed
sky.
Oh my stupid over-the-knee-boots
always begging for it, some dress
with a zippered front
the beginning & end
of a conversation
about his uneasy wife.
Greet the day
Know it will exact its revenge
For crimes you didn’t even know you committed
But feel guilty for now
you backing out of the driveway they saw you looking
over your shoulder to check the way was clear and from their perch the audience again
and again saw you not seeing them the warm light of the TV you your family the weather
Infinite mystery borne with nightly
cold reflections of stress on the alpha
I swell with locusts in vague pines—
no love-gnosis nor phrase to exalt her—
I put gin and ice in a dirty glass. Lot watched me. But more than just him watched. A ghoul inside of his mouth watched, smirked.
“There’s an hour left,” I said. “Don’t judge me.”
He stared.
I missed school for a couple days. It got to the point where I could no longer ignore the vine’s presence. It swirled around my vase of flowers. It coiled around the chair legs, coated my room in blanket of green, and swallowed my walls in its shadows. It even made its way to the ceiling. it covered my collection of books, CDs, and movies, posters, and photos. Almost all my belongings were obstructed from my view, hidden layers beneath these vines.