Pastiche

Suddenly and for the first time in my life, I was glad I was not adopted. It was a startling realization. If I didn't know both sides of my family, I did know one side intimately. I further realized as we walked into Aunt Berniece's house that no matter how angry I got with the family, I was indeed a part of a family. If I hadn't exactly been loved in a maternal sense, I had known a degree of caring. I thought of the presents my aunts gave me at the funeral home, admittedly offbeat, but I was touched by their caring. None of my cousins would ever receive such gifts. My aunts could have returned the gifts, but they didn't. Aunt Red Maple Snow has not quite melted off the shadows and already, each twig holds a small bouquet— like a promise. Only the sarvis bloomed earlier, its frost signaling thaw the opening of earth consecration of winter's dead. The roses of maple herald dawn color the hills, stir the bees, pull the unborn flowers from deep loam: bloodroot, hepática, arbutus, and anemone garnish the brown winter salad— the leafy litter. They issue soft blooms in haste love fulfilled before the closing canopy darkens their world. —Gary Cummisk Irene could have kept her beloved money, but she hadn't. But I'm not stupid. I know had it not been for Aunt Berniece I wouldn't have gotten anything . Somehow getting the presents before the funeral helped me cope with the funeral itself. It seemed as though Aunt Berniece was still with me. I hadn't felt anything like that for a long time. Maybe that's why they had done it. Maybe her sisters needed her presence too. Uncle Junior had once told me that family was family. If Mama's sisters had done nothing else, they had proven that bittersweet bit of life s wisdom to me. Pastiche On the ridge, we tether our horses to a lone tree and lie in the afternoon sun. You turn to look in silvered glass, but my eyes are cut crystal and what you see is a night wrapped up in high mountains, oysters, crawfish étouffée, bread sopped and slipped in my mouth. If there are changes in your chiseled body, high shoulders and hips, how would they be measured as you glance past me in riding boots, mud and crop? In gait or stroke? When you swim next to me a mile out at sea, so close I breath your air, salt crusts on your fingers. In the lay of a camisole, an orange goblet in your hand? The salt lick in the high meadow is for horse and deer and they watch disinterested as we wash in a cold stream. —Ray Hackett 56 ...