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Stepmother
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Stepmother Save the dreams for therapy, the therapist said. But this dream has a train.That’s new. And outside the window: a boy and a man in medium coats, the boy’s hood peaked like a dumpling—something thrown off. They are staring at a brick wall painted blue, milk-blue, milk-rich, mother’s cottage. No mother.A barn door color, a topaz earring stuck in a cushion. See boy, the man says. Something lost. Hard to love, the left ones. Hard to fill the bent sheet, the table skirt. On the dresser, makeup congeals in a bottle. Left makeup. Left shower cap. Left eyelash on the boy’s nicked chin.The boy has left his lunchbox at the mother’s house again. No Tupperware returns from the mother’s house, no shoes. No boy in the father’s house now. No sound of boy. Not his day, which are Sundays, Mondays, alternate Thursdays. In the dream, they have their backs to the train. In the dream, they don’t even hear -52- the movement: passenger rattle, track breath. The comforter had cornflowers. Let me fill the house with flowers, different flowers— celery, moss—different-smelling, dusky, wood. Let me make them turn by presence, will of shoulders, wind of hand. And when they do, what light unfolding. In this part of the dream, everything becomes blinding, a wash of what’s after. Don’t tell. But what to tell? What to interpret? What could it mean—the boy and man turning, their faces blurred? Even the wall goes hazy, unmoored.What else could it mean but I will? -53- [34.230.66.177] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:14 GMT) ...