Mannequin Envy
a journal of visual and literary arts
~fall
2006 ~
There, On The Tarmac
Easy
I Wish I Knew The Latin Name For This
There, On The Tarmac
Easy
I Wish I Knew The Latin Name For This
| There,
On The
Tarmac Your plane touches down. Much has gone unsaid between us. The lark was high in the singing tree when last we spoke. All we have in common is our fractured childhood: Father gone for years at a time, Mother ruling with her polished nails. I was always the good girl while you snuck the keys to Mother’s car for yet another joy ride, got fake I.D. so you could go to bars with your overage boyfriends. We love each other, we hate each other, that is the way of sisterhood. Let this visit be different: I want to be your friend. I promise I won’t talk about our past for the years go, they go. Easy I am prone on any surface, flat or steep. Location doesn’t matter — cars will do and music helps grip the mood, Beethoven or the Blues. The tertiary stage is a slow turtle to desire. Peaking, I seek younger men with fire and a stick to rub. I never knew Mother did it; never saw her bathrobe fall. She was Barbie, polystyrene, without a seam. I admit it’s spring and in the back yard the foot-high grass is green as peppers-- bends over backwards when I stretch out on it, jumps back uninjured. Says lay me again, lie down on me again, this season is so brief. I Wish I Knew The Latin Name For This Tinfoil in my teeth, the scrape of a Popsicle stick when the sweet ice has gone — daughter, you bring me to this. I cringe at the sound of a fingernail across a blackboard, your boyfriend’s rage at 2 a.m., the ominous twinkling of a squad car with its blue authority. I have one weapon and even this loses potency—that you love me or did or might have or could. |