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:11.JtutJKI1513ack ym-erd«J CRYSTAL E. WILKINSON A native oflndian Creek in Casey County, Kentucky, Crystal Wilkinson grew up, as she has said in an autobiographical essay, among "creeks, one-room churches, outhouses, gravel roads, old men whittling at Hill's Grocery down in Needmore, daisies, Big Boy Tomatoes, and buttercups." She is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University and has recently participated in various writing workshops throughout the state. A recipient of awards from the Kentucky Arts Council and the MaryAnderson Center for the Arts in Indiana, Wilkinson is a founding member of the Mfrilachian Poets, the assistant director ofthe Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, and chair of the creative writing department for the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts. Her journalistic work includes articles , book reviews, and essays in The Lexington-Herald Leader, The Lane Report , and ACE Magazine. Her poems and stories have appeared in Southern Exposure, Now & Then, Calyx, The Briar CliffReview, and Obsidian II: Black Literature in Review. Blackberries, Blackberries (2000) is her debut collection ofshort stories. Frank X. Walker has noted that Wilkinson's "honest and sensual narrative pulls the reader in like a lover sharing their most intimate secrets." "Humming Back Yesterday," which first appeared in Calyx in 1999, depicts a woman's struggle to reconcile her haunting past with her present and future. Using a narrative technique reminiscent of that of Katherine Anne Porter and Toni Morrison, but uniquely Wilkinson, the story is a confluence of pain and joy, fear and comfort, death and renewal. • Aberdeen Copeland was bringing yesterday back from twentyyears ofhiding. Bringing it back in slow motion. Never mattered where she was, what she was doingweeding the garden, shopping in the corner store, making love to her Clovis, cooking beets, kneading bread dough-it could come anytime. She was stirring the soup beans, beginning to wash the dishes. The water was hot, stinging her arms clean up to the elbows. It just came over her again. Came back in still life. A camera taking pictures. HUMMING BACK YESTERDAY 385 Click. A teenagedAberdeen in apurple wraparound dress with little green flowers. A toothy smile. Hair wildand bushy like they wore it in the seventies . Wire hoop earrings. A white sweater, knitted in big open loops, draped around her shoulders. Pearl buttons down thefront. Her hip jutted to one side. Her head cocked. Hands on waist. Flat stomach. Beaucoup lipstick. Dark pink. Click. Mama comes in full view. Tall big boned, big breasted. Shapely. Flawless makeup. Blue eyeshadow, Longlashes. Black orchidlipstick. Mouth open. Laughing up some storm. One arm hidden in back ofTommy. The otherhandresting on the kitchen counter in the house they usedto live in up on Hustonville Street. Tommy is a foot shorter than Mama. His head is right at her shoulders. His spats shiny. Hair slicked back, a skunk streak running through the middle, just a little offto the side. His belly roundas a balloon. White starched shirt. Black dress pants, held up by suspenders. No smile. No tie. A cigarette danglingfrom his lips. One ofhis big hands snaking around Mama's waist. Fingers big as hot dogs. His other hand spread out on the edge ofthe sink. His wedding bandshining. Click. God's Witness Church over in Turnersville. Brother Smith up in the pulpit. Black robe. Wrinkled chin. Hisfistfrozen in midair. Tommy's hand is under the coat spread out across Mama's lap. The humming takes over. Back in her kitchen, Aberdeen is holding her head in her hands. Eyes closed. Elbows on the table. Legs gaped open. Hum. Tommy's hand is under the coat, his hot-dog-fingered hand moving in some hidden place above Mama's thigh. Aberdeen is watching, though trying not to. She is old enough to know. And old enough to know better. Hum. Brother Smith is sweating. He wipes his brow with agreat big white handkerchief His mouth is moving but there are no words. His arms are moving. Mama's legs are apart. She is moving like shouting. Nobody else notices. Aberdeen watches her head roll back. The coat is moving. Tommy turns his head. Grins atAberdeen. She turns away but is drawn back. ''Aberdeen," Clovis starts off, ''Aberdeen, you got the headache again?" He steps up behind her, places his hands on her shoulders and rubs. He smells of blood and death from the slaughterhouse. A smell that Aberdeen got used to a long time ago, but today it sits in her nose...

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