Prose and Poetry by Alley Greymond
I
am a goat
ruminating
on field grass and dandelions.
My
teeth chomp, lips and bones
sliding
sideways
and
you can’t see worry in my eyes.
Good
thing for you my horns are hollow.
In
any case, they arch backwards
as
though confused about where I am going.
I
am a goat and it is my black hair
floating
in your tea, my hooves
not
yours, tracking dust and dung
across
the tapestry
you’ve
been weaving for eons.
I’d
give you milk and call it a day
but
even that has soured.
The September sun set two hours ago.
Gewgaw hawkers in canvas rows smell
of salt-water taffy, and rancid grease.
Harsh white filaments strobe and stutter
inside bulbs strung like interrogation lights
from every ride, ring toss and dog stand.
Jantzen Beach is lit like a rogue holiday.
Daddy hands me a towering bouffant of pink
spun sugar, tearing chunks of cotton cumulus
in his meaty hands, unraveling the gift down
to an anemic, bald paper cylinder.
I am eight, innocent, and diminished
like wrack, or pocket lint, a fledgling
next to Daddy.
Every time I remember Daddy
it is just he and I; my siblings home—sick, or
gone.
He says, “Don’t be a chicken.”
It is a tottering, rickety-rackety, click
and clang of wood, metal and screams crescendo,
decrescendo in call and answer.
At the roller coaster arc and axis and spin
women’s hair riles like eel grass subject
to brutal, fluctuating tides.
My knees clack. A wind-blown leaf,
red as any omen, catches in my sock.
There is no demarcation between fear and awe.
Even a neglectful parent hesitates
before leaving an eight-year old unattended
in the deep dusk.
If I don’t go, he can’t go.
Spoilsport.
Big-Baby.
Thumb-sucker.
Gutless.
Chicken.
Clammy salt-water air and sweat,
the familiar stale beer close, and in the
distance
another child’s pee.
We lift, and I mute screams—
fast forward to forever.
Bruised by the side wall, bruised belly,
the seat guard rail, thrown against Daddy’s bulk
and back, like a pink gingham ball.
Wasn’t I fearless?
Was I not brave?
For you?
After, Daddy says “I want my own bumper car.”
Two boys bump me into a corner
and Daddy whizzes by and whizzes by chortling.
I wish you knew how
to replace your own shirts’
lost buttons—
thread a needle-eye
like a poor camel heaven bound,
work the shank with twine,
tie up the four-hole, binding points
of entry and intrigue.
Your first button at four,
buttoned, unbuttoned,
a practice as everlasting as taxes.
First, place the button
onto your tongue
like a Eucharist wafer.
Imagine it is a body.
I wish you knew
what it was like to go to church
before one could buy holy supplies
and chat with God online.
The tender button
has spiritual dimensions:
the underside smooth as porcelain,
the top curved, or convex,
nubby, or shaped like a flower.
Before buttons were molded of plastic
like everything else
they were made from Gaia’s elements—
wood, shell, antler, bone, ivory,
stone, pottery.
That growing in skill—
growing bored—
growing commercial,
we made buttons
of metal, glass,
papier-mache, and cloth.
Still, how uncommon
the common button.
It leaves everything done—or undone.
Next, press the needle
into your thumb whorl
until you can tell point and eye by touch.
The needle should pass through silk
without a mark.
Taste the thread ends
for fray
or stiffness.
Blind the eye with a finger—
a spot of flesh
and aim.
Thread. Double knot.
I wish you knew how to measure twice,
cut once,
to fix before things go wrong—
how to mend to last.
Vanilla notes in biscotti,
on my cologne-spritzed wrist,
lavender—
the bedroom, the kitchen
of memory—
where I beat eggs and butter
always tripling
the quarter teaspoon of amber.
Vanilla—lush
as every boy I longed to
kiss,
every unrequited,
every forbidden love
punished—
Princess Xanat,
beheaded in the forest,
became an
orchid.
Yes
to the black, shriveled
fruit,
the little pod—
to labor without season,
root rot,
hand-pollination,
the slow coaxing
of sweetness.
Yes
to what must be tended,
cut, cured,
made to yield.
The apple—
one from a hundred—
ripens anyway.
Like the boys:
common,
and still good to taste.
Yes,
to the resisted lemon—
to lilac that cannot be distilled.
Yes
to imitation,
to cheap lingering scent.
Rain, grass,
a single rose—
and the body,
cultivated—
opens.
(c) 2017
Wheat.
Corn.
Wheat.
Wheat.
Dirt.
Alfalfa.
Wheat. Wheat.
Station wagon passes on our left.
Against our side window
a bumble bee splats. Half its body
shredded by wind.
Wheat.
Corn. Wheat.
Alfalfa. Wheat.
Wheat.
Elm tree. Small white house.
The red-birded whirligig is not swirling.
Sheep.
Corn.
Wheat.
Oncoming truck,
cab flat-faced as a pug,
hauling chickens—
One chicken. Two chickens.
Feathers. Dust.
Dust.
Are we there yet?
Wheat.
Wheat.
Alfalfa.
Wheat.
