Drop-off Point, and: The Doll, and: Sacred Bamboo

Drop-off Point

I sat out todaylistening to the lambs lament the cut grassof the football field,the noise of the German tourists'wheeled luggage sparked a memoryof that go-cart we madewith the small ball bearing wheels.

A death trap, my mother said,but we could only see perfectionthe mobile front axlegiving excellent cornering,my long legs folded on the plywood bodyand your short stubby run to get us goingjumping on behind, screaming from the offdown Mill Lane to the jump-off pointbefore the road.How many hundreds of turnsdid it take before that one "bockety" wheelfailed to stop, coming a cropperwith a 1989 John Deere?That last summer we picked upthe dismembered pieces, luggedthem home, with plans of remodellinga new improved chassisa twin exhaust system.You were gone when I went to call you out.Unexpected, she said,gone back to live with your parents.I stood there on the high stepturning away from your grandmotherlooking down the long fieldto the abattoir, the stink ofblood in my nostrilsa butterfly in my throatour new exhaustburning the tips of my fingers.

The Doll

Like all the hand-me-downs I had presumed her emptyspent, like the elastic of the knitted tightsmy weak kidneys forced me to wearor the shoes whose tongues had tired of talkinglolling to the sideslike dead badgers on my narrow pinsraided by my sisters, cousins in America,friends of friends-of-ourswho didn't need them anymore.

Her parcel arrived, holding the worst selection of ragsmy mother had ever seenmore holed than my rough wear.Shaking her weary headshe swept the bedraggled bundle into her armsand squeezed her out from that cloth wombonto our kitchen floorher roly-poly body rocking hypnotically to a slow stopgazing intently at me.

But it was only my insatiable curiositythat forced me to retrieve hertest her for that wished-for chocolatebeneath her painted-on clothesand keeping her—to spite my older sisters' pick of parcels.She was my secret—Matryoshkafrom that aged body, dried out, chipped, and battereda baby, pristine, perfect, pure.

Sacred Bamboo

Watering the sacred bambooswirl of dirt waterreminds me of the mud pieswe used to make as childrenwatching them bake in the sunfinely crafted into cakesevenly spaced on the bonnetof the old Ford Anglia.

Or the sloe wine we toiled for hours onproduced by the bottleburied in the acre to ferment,we could never agree the exact locationwhen the exhumation date was due.

Now we share baking tipsswapping recipes, comparing tastes.Why can't I mention my broken heartor the effort it takes to speak of insignificant things?Why can't you hold metell me everything will be okaythis too will pass?

Could it be the remnants of those storiesyou conjured out of tirednessto ensure our hush—terrified,driven by our mortal fear of the Glebethose overhanging branches and dense air,the grey walls of Doody'sdraped with the skeletons of vines,and the black door where your storieshung his wife each Sunday?

I look at this scrawny scrap of a thingno more sacred than the pot it sits inand know you tried to tell mein your own wayit wasn't worth the moneyor my love, but all I could seewas the need in ita thing that you could never see.