BACK
Was But An Art Of Mischief
deborah wood
There had been so much to talk about. Schadenfreude interrupting the momentum of silence, she felt
herself de trop. Reading essays on friendship without one in sight. Continued with her ceremonies of
intensity, rituals of sensation.
Three a.m. pill, leave the window open, glance across the palisades, she uses her finger to carve
unpredictable angles in the dust, writes her own narrative with the mind, naps in a soft scrubbed tub,
seagulls mapping undiscovered archipelagos in the sky, open heart surgery, bleached vision, navigating
the ambiguous folds in time, blanched. Bakelite jewels adorn her painted fingers, she eats a torta while
mouthing the words for the ingredients in Russian, the semblance of her lover, filing away her collection
of paint samples from arcade white to relentless olive in a box by the unmade bed, reads stained pages to
discover what occurs in the hills at night--the uncertainty of the next, the three lined text.
I was there. I know. My name is---
Concentrates on the preservation of coffee and the cult of the embrace, she strings festoon aqua faux
pearls to wrap her ankles, wrap the napping cat, wants to be part of a gang, carry the title of head tea
granny, gravitates to where cupcakes are sold. She always wears sunblock when on the inside, just in
case, didn’t leave the house for days.
Each hour & four minutes she measures a tablespoon of water for each plant, each hour plus the fifteenth
minute she rotates the greenery, avoids the disaster of crooked growth.
I was there. I know. Her name is---
She was without extremities excepting the obi lilac & fashionable gray embellishing her neck, fingers.
Shamed beyond shame finds herself lost among the others who tread with their last breath, again
exhausted from making her leave.
Her today is just like tomorrow, yesterday, but wholly unlike your today, any day.
Is her blue your blue? Is her quixotic plum yours? Everyday seems like a Friday or Monday, she is
patient for Wednesday, a halcyon green.
She is here. She knows. Her name is---
She is sure of being extinguished, always reads the last page first, first the last line, the goodbye, and then
again, repeat, renew, revise. Repeat the first one last.
(c) 2007 by Deborah Wood