-
For Months She Came at Night, a Strange Presence
- Red Hen Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
142 For Months She Came at Night, a Strange Presence like the beating of something flying against the glass or the swirl of water in a conch shell, a shadow of a shadow. Then she got more bold, could unhinge the porch door silently, help herself to berries or bread. First I thought I imagined the hole in the muffins as if something with a beak found a way in. And then, the trail of crumbs downstairs out to the pond. One morning before guava rose over the skin of water, it was the second night I couldn’t sleep and wanted at least to see sun rise when I saw some thing nobody would believe unless they believed in angels. A woman, mostly a woman, with wings in the wet grass with doves and geese. She didn’t have arms, not like a thalidomide baby, but more like another bird. An angel, except for a huge beak where the Christmas cards have soft lips usually smiling. She started to move, to walk into the water but I beckoned, put my hand out to her as if nothing seemed strange and after she hesitated she kind of fluttered up toward me, her head lowered as if she was sure I’d be afraid. That must have been, I realized later, what 143 she expected of most women. I’m Leda’s girl she whispered cowering inside those wings that were like a screen I imagined her camouflaged behind, some Gipsy Rose Lee doing a costume change, coming out with a basket of fruit on her head. “The daughter of rape,” she hissed, more like the geese, getting bolder. My mother was ravished, raped. Without arms, I could be Venus. Without arms, she could have loved me but these wings remind her of that day everything changed. Now I crouch like statues of angels in the gardens rain and sleet pelt, earthbound and cracked, still dream of flight ...