Photo: Izabelle Acheson on Unsplash
She will not elucidate.
She won’t expound.
She won’t make plain.
There is, in her view, absolutely
Nothing she needs to
Explain.
There is the plate.
There are the cookies.
There was her mouth to entertain.
So, what does any of that
Have to do with dinner
Or with waiting for dessert
Again?
She could not sleep for the excitement.
A dream come true. A lifelong prayer answered.
She lost count of the times they’d gone without, made do with little. They saved. They scrounged. They worked. They sought. They searched. They found.
Only to be turned down. Back onto the merry-go-round.
It was not for sale. It was too old. It was rotten. It was tied up in legal battles. It was too large. Too steeply priced. Too small.
She almost lost hope.
Then this. Beat up and needing some work. Their Goldilocks perfection.
He didn’t want to sell. His late wife’s boat. Her family’s name. Nope.
They begged. They pleaded. They tried to explain.
Finally … he relented. Perhaps they wore him down.
They drew the contract. Argued. Fretted. Signed.
The boat was theirs.
“You must rename her,” he stressed, pen in hand.
Of course.
Tomorrow it will become her River Run.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Photo: Rene Bernal on Unsplash
We are,
All the colors
Of this earth,
Broken into
Pieces of
Humanity and
Mixed together
To make into
A kaleidoscope
Of hope.
For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Kaleidoscope in 23 words
“It’s not much,” Eric noted.
“That it isn’t,” Morris agreed. “Still …”
Eric nodded. It was better than their tent in the woods. “Walls look sturdy.”
“That they do.” Morris circled the dilapidated farmhouse, hands clasped behind his back. A habit left from years of teaching and one he wasn’t particularly happy to be reminded of.
It still hurt. To have been cast aside. To not be wanted anymore.
“So, she just left it for you?” Eric tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He’d hoped for some juicy details ever since Morris had told him about the inheritance.
“That she did,” Morris replied.
He remembered her, of course. Juliette, the brunette. They’d been a couple, in a manner of speaking. “What’s mine is yours,” she had promised. Years ago.
Then they’d parted.
Not once had he thought it to mean anything beyond what she’d shared with him then.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Enslaved persons cutting sugar cane on the Island of Antigua, 1823, (The British Library)
She fed them well so
They would
Sleep,
And silently
She gave the slip,
To all she knew
Yet did not sweep
Away the bite
Of whip.
She fled,
So the child in
Her belly’s keep,
Would not writhe, helpless,
In another person’s
Grip.
For the dVerse quadrille challenge: slip
(Note: Dedicated to all who suffered and still suffer under the yoke of injustice, discrimination, racism, and pretense. We can do better than this. We must do better than this.)
Galway, Ireland (photo: Fum Bally on Unsplash)
He leaned on his elbows and watched, periodically checking the clock and the tide-chart that hung next to it. Any moment now.
The briny air tickled a sneeze out of him, and he debated whether he had time to go fetch a handkerchief or if he could just use his shirt. Laundry day would not be for another full week. The handkerchief won. He rushed back to the window, flushing with a combination of exertion and embarrassment.
It was sobering to be faced with his own obsession.
The waves hissed and brushed against the beach. The ocean sighed. The breeze picked up. It would rain tonight. He believed his bones.
Then he saw her, walking on the exposed strip of rock-spattered sand. Her head was down, searching. She held a plastic bucket in her hand. It had seen better days.
They both had.
She was his treasure in the sand.
For What Pegman Saw: Galway, Ireland
Photo: Sven Brandsma on Unsplash
He reports first thing in the morning.
He reports again every night.
There’s little that could dissuade him
From being absolutely forthright.
He records every scene with a flourish.
His voice reflects every sight,
As with journalist’s flair
He spells data in ample delight.
He would not be distracted from telling,
The minutia has got to be tight.
After all, he is in potty training
And to him no discharging is trite.
Photo: Jon Tyson on Unsplash
As soon as he arrived, she would be able to make her exit.
Take time for herself. Have a moment of calm.
She was oh-so-tired. She urged him on.
“On my way,” he said. “A few more minutes and I’ll come.”
She waited.
The minutes then the hours ticked their slow molasses of seconds. Time puddled, sticky, in her mind.
Around her the demands of life continued and her body obeyed. Her hands found zippers and did and undid buttons and washed dishes and stirred pots and hung wet linens and kneaded dough and bandaged a skinned knee and broke up fights and interrupted arguments. Her mouth managed to answer questions she did not remember being asked.
At some point her eyes no longer rose to check the clock. The sinking feeling curled up and took residence inside her gut.
She fed. She bathed. She put to bed.
She rocked. She soothed. Not knowing what she said.
As dark deepened and the night grew long, she knew.
He would not arrive.
There will be only more to overcome.
Photo: Louisa Potter on Unsplash
She spilled
A trail of tears
Along the footprints of
Her years.
At first she was the
Princess.
The apple of her parents’
Eyes.
Half-grown, she had become
The Black Beauty
Sitting on the class’s
Throne.
When she first met him,
He was her wizard.
Jacob
Of the dazzling blue eyes.
They all followed him
Like cattle.
She swooned
Into his charm.
Into what she believed to be
His tender and true
Heart.
But her prince charming
Turned into
The Czar
Who wielded
A sharp tongue like a
Purple sword.
Who called her
Drab.
Unlovable.
A lazy housewife.
With her
No longer his
Purple queen,
He left in search of
Better.
Found his golden acre.
And she,
In tears of ice
Wept storms,
As blue fire
Drew Aurora Borealis
Across her broken heart.
For dVerse poetics
In the days of old they’d walk out on the water at high tide, appearing to float atop the waves.
It was a sign of trust.
Also of recognition. For they’d come from the water, after all. Their bodies might have forgotten how to live in it, but their cousins — seals, dolphins, whales — still held links to what was possible. And they spoke of long swims and deep dives and frolicking, and of how one day they’d all come home again.
And so they hoped.
And let themselves be carried by tentative feet on mossy rocks built far in and well past the breakers, all the way to the beginnings of the depths.
First as children whose hands were grasped by others’. Then as youngsters showing off their balance and their fearless speed (and perhaps a bit of memory from within their cells, of swiveling agility and joy being in of itself a kind of swimming). Then as new adults, saddled with fuller understanding and big bellies or wrapped by legs and arms of small ones holding tight around the waist and neck. Then as elders, wary of a fall and fearful even more of a child letting go of their hand and drowning. And at the last, as age counted no more, carried, offered, sent home to the sea.
Yes, in the days of old they’d walk out onto the water.
In celebration. In commemoration. In passage. In ritual and prayer and courage and communal hope.
Till they forgot.
And the waves licked the rocks till very little path was left, and dolphins and seals and whales no longer were spoken to and had moved on, and the earth and depths curled tight to wait.
For the people’s lungs still ached for the swim, and their heart still beat to the rhythm of the surf as they slept, and they still made a bit of ocean in their eyes, especially when they wept.
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