The Motley

Hallie had just gotten out of class and was on her way to her car, the morning her sister called. It was January and classes at the local community college had started up just the day before. Her backpack was ripping at the seams after a trip to the book store that morning, and Hallie was having hard time juggling her phone, car keys, coffee and new syllabi in her gloved hands. It was lucky she had set her coffee down on the hood of nearby car before she answered, or else the shock would have made her drop it anyway. Violet didn’t have much to say on the phone (she wasn’t big on communication); just that she was at the pharmacy on the square and needed Hallie to pick her up. Hallie hardly had time to respond before Violet hung up, but she felt obligated to go and pick her estranged sibling up anyway.

The circus is in town.  You can hear the music for miles, see the lights glowing in the distance.  The hills are dotted with tents that balloon upwards like the caps on so many mosques.  Scarlet, aqua, violet, tangerine, peony, gold...so many colors blossom on the green carpet.  If you enter, there are many attractions that will catch your eye. Dancing bears, apples covered in all sorts of sweets, people doing stunts, tents filled with wonderful places somehow all contained in a tiny space.  It will all enchant you: sights, smells, tastes, and sounds. You may not ever reach the bird tent, but that's the tent you should visit.

From a Tlingit song,

as remembered

Oh dark child

with your bright clever eyes,

how your blood must thrum

to return to the skies.

It is hard to put things back together again. After they have been broken, I mean. It would be easier to just stay whole. This is my train of thought as I sit Indian style on the soft green grass, the fiery heat of the summer sun bouncing off my unconcerned body. Perhaps the breeze, pushing my shoulder-length hair off my neck helps. Nonetheless, I lean forward and press my cheek to the cool block of marble before me. Maybe I was hot after all. My fingers trace the letters that make up his name. The font is all wrong. I think it is meant to look fancy. To me it is skeletal, all sharp angles and bones. I would have picked something soft, round, full of life; something with a little meat on its bones. Now I am thinking back to the day I first considered the fact that someday, Brady was going to die. It sounds stupid. I mean, aren’t we all going to die?

A video camera begins its recording; a young man, somewhere in his late teens, sits in a metal chair facing the camera. He stares blankly at the ground, arms folded and legs crossed. Another man sits in the room out of the camera’s sight. The room is swallowed by a pale white, lime green color; maybe it’s the near burnt out fluorescent lights- maybe it’s just the hundreds of dead moths whose curiosity led them too far into the burning light…

Nothing turns my stomach like the acrid odor

Of charred photo albums

And the five waterlogged childhoods

Lying smeared and ashy within.

The leather of the albums cracks

Like a battered body,

Housing secret pain.

Agree with the Royalty

The adults called it a seat

But I knew what it truly was.

My companions hurried in,

They marched into the room,

Excited for the feast.

Like an old oak tree from the backyard,
My grandfather, Harold,
Stays strong.

When you grow up with someone,

You learn them. Sometimes

You feel them. You may not

Know the details of their privacy,

But when they don’t want you to

Know something,

You know it.