Soaps

SOAPS / James Hejna . . .or a happy return, just as it might occur, her arms poised to unfold and reach her hands to his shoulder and nudge him there; and in this movement, her smile, her black hair, her generous approach, as if objects as simple as the eyelets in shoes were prefixed by "o," or that a stack of white plates could evoke, in sequence, the significant daydreams of the worker who had turned them out, and the chronicled reflections of each dinner guest—students, novice poets, violinists, those reading Tolstoy for the first time, those trying out different stage names for themselves, a young actor with whom she rehearsed a parting kiss. . . and later, in New York, other friends working part-time as waitresses, cabbies, bicycle messengers, friends who held gala premieres in a loft shared with a gay mime troupe and a string quartet; impoverished. Two close friends married, and moved uptown. At a potluck, a sculptor who sold towels and sheets looked through his plate toward Minneapolis and said the military had besieged the arts. A dancer considered dental school. . . .washing dishes, once, she thought she could see herself in the reflections of her guests; she saw her characteristic lines emerging on the forehead of a man concerned about originality. He had written a poem with a TV ad as a central metaphor; the poem itself was thus transient, dated, like a single, white plate which at some time might appear at a rummage sale, with a hairline crack, the circumstances of its creation long since lost. And in this intimate circle. . . 50 · The Missouri Review ...