Summers on Screvin
- Summers on Screvin
Big Wheels would crunch their noise as pre-schoolers rode those oversized tricycles past every house on the block, continuously underfoot. No one wanted training wheels
on a brand-new, just-out-of the box three-speed bike, but everyone wanted neon yo-yos that glowed in the dark, wanted those pink balls the color
of bubble gum, perfect for a sweaty game of handball against the back of someone’s house. When bored with freeze tag, with red light, green light, 1-2-3,
we’d blow giant bubbles through huge plastic hoops, draw hopscotch on the ground in colored chalk, or crouch low to play jacks,
coveting those silver sparks. Certain possessions weren’t easy to share: rusty metal skates that fit over sneakers just
right, hula hoops and skateboards no one else had played with yet, wooden paddles with cherry-red rubber balls attached by strings.
We could spend all day bouncing those balls off their paddles, counting every time each ball leapt off, sprung back. [End Page 443]
We lived for water: water balloons, water pistols, lawn sprinklers and hoses. Open fire hydrants poured rivers into the streets
and we danced in rushing water until someone turned it off, told us to do something better with ourselves, so we stirred
up mud at curbs, digging rich silt with popsicle sticks, grabbed handfuls of dandelions, fingers coated with that sticky
green juice, or scaled rocks in the open lot across the street, jumped on a rank soggy mattress as if it were a trampoline,
and not some sorry piece of garbage someone had dumped among bushes, ran home with scraped knees and dirty bruised legs
when we heard the piddly music of the ice cream truck, craving the sweet shaved ice of sno-cones. Tired, we’d sit on the hood
of someone’s idle car, until they yelled at us to get off, adults scolding from their lawn chairs
as they traded cigarettes and gossip, cooking summer barbecue outdoors, sharp smoke rising thick and hot from coal-darkened grills.
They’d offer us cold sodas and salty potato chips, chicken legs with the thighs still on, sauce dripping [End Page 444]
onto paper plates and napkins our mouths and fingers greasy, happy, clothes so dirty and torn our mothers would soon make rags
of them, muscles sore as we gulped, chewed, and swallowed all the food anyone gave us, sure we could never eat enough, never be satisfied.
Selected works by Allison Joseph:
-
• Summers on Screvin
-
• On Sidewalks, on Streetcorners, As Girls
-
• Playing Rough
-
• Artist-in-Residence
-
• It’s Tough to be a Girl Scout in the City
-
• The Tenant
-
• Señora Williams
-
• Plenty
-
• An Interview with Allison Joseph
Allison Joseph, who was born in London, is an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Southern Illinois University (Carbondale). Her poems have appeared in numerous periodicals, including The Kenyon Review, Parnassus, and Callaloo. She is author of What Keeps Us Here (Ampersand Press, 1992), a volume of poems. She graduated from Kenyon College and received the M.F.A. from Indiana University (Bloomington).
