out of it p a g e f o u r |
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Poetry copyright1999-2001, Christine Hamm Highway 1 Here it begins and ends. It is dangerous to be on the road this summer. As always, there is the cliff. And on the flowering slopes of ice plants hide gunmen with random thoughts and the flitting hearts of red- tailed hawks. Crickets and firecrackers. Gunshots like wood slapping wood like we used to do when I was seven and you were six and the horses were coming, we could hear them coming, on the drum of our blocks and the sting of our palms. Just a little hole in the door of the Mercedes. I can fit my littlest finger into it, the metal split like an orange peel. The gunman wore black, and so do I. The sky was as black as when we were under the covers at night We were princesses with shorn heads adrift on a popsicle stick raft. There was no light. But I could see your ear closest to me with whorls like the opening heart of a pine cone. I have always felt the light from your face. Your cheeks flower now like ice and the hair across your forehead is neater than it should be. Your breath fills the room like a funeral parlor sigh and I remember the smell of our dirty naked toes, Good Dog I. The dog comes home. The dog comes home from 300 miles away. We thought we had given him away to our old neighbors. My mother has painted on her eyebrows and lashes, my father has slicked his hair to the side and changed ties, and I'm wearing white nylons. We're on the road to the restaurant. He shows up, gleaming on the yellow line, just as the moon rises. I hope that I'm the only one to see him. He howls. The car slows. My parents lean forward and stare through their prescriptions. My mother says, Oh, Micheal, what's that, and my father presses his hair deliberately on his head with one hand. His pink eyes float and wink at me. The car stops. The dog disappears in front of us, and the car rocks. If it's not one thing, my mother says. We finally get to go somewhere as a family, my father says. Not since she was sixteen, my mother says. They turn and stare at me. The dog circles the car, pausing occassionally to form his lips into an "o" and roll out a ghastly sound. My father peers over the top of his glasses. He's limping, he says. The poor puppy, my mother says like Minnie Mouse. The dog rubs his face on my window and leaves lines of foam. My father turns the car around, and my mother says, then we'll have to get more Kal-Kan. The dog sits in the back seat. II. The Dog Eats The dog eats everything in the house. My mother and I go to Macy's. When we come home, the dog has eaten two unwrapped loaves of bread, and a chair cushion. No!, my mother says to the dog. No! The dog runs and sits on my lap, elbowing me in the stomach. This has got to stop, my mother says to me, picking up pieces of cushion. Bad puppy!, she says to the dog. The dog sticks his head and paws under my leg. My mother glues the cupboard doors shut. III. Beating the Dog I admit, I beat the dog, too. Bad dog, I tell him. He has peed on my bed. I hit his head and rump. He rolls over and wiggles. I kick his chest, and he takes the tip of my shoe in his grin. Nnn, he says. Nnnn. He snaps his head from left to right. I fall down, and place my hand in his jaws. He rolls his eyes and holds me. IV. Walking the Dog My father and I walk the dog. I pull the dog next to my leg as we walk down the driveway. Heel, I say. He looks up at me. Good dog, I say. Come on, let's go, my father says. He claps his hands, and unzips his blue down jacket. Sit, I say. The dog trots after my father. I yank him back and press on his rump with the heel of my hand. Sit, I say. I walk forward. Heel, I say. The dog heels. Com'ere puppy, my father says. He claps his hands and jumps sideways. Come on, puppy! he says. The dog hunkers down and barks. He doesn't mean it, I want to tell the dog, sure he want to play a little now, but he'll never really let you go. The dog runs in a circle. Heel! I say. I want to tell him about the dangers of running free, of a messy room, and too much joy. Come here, puppy, my father says. Oooh, puppy. The dog tosses the leash in his mouth and dances. My father runs ahead. Sit! I yell at the dog. The dog runs. I burst into tears. V. Killing the Dog Don't kill the dog, I say to the phone. This is very hard for me, my mother says. Give the dog away, I tell her. This is very hard for me, my mother says. He bit a little boy on the leg. He wasn't little, I say. He provoked him. All he did was walk by, my mother says. I'm sure he gave the dog one of those looks, you know, I say. One of those looks that could mean anything but you know they really mean... The dog has to go, my mother says. We have rules in this house. No biting dogs. Put a muzzle on him, I say. My mother starts to cry. Dr. Alzheimer's Nightmare Someone is in your house! Someone follows you around, pocketing what you put down: your eyeglasses, your housekeys, your falseteeth. They are someone you know but keeps hiding: your neice, your daughter, your granddaughter. Soon they move the bathroom to another part of the house, fill the old space with a closet full of someone else's coats, or a bedroom you barely recognize. The toilet is so far away. How you suffer! They move the bathroom as you try to sleep. You can hear the bumping and the voices, but can't make out the words. They are trying to humiliate you, steal your dignity as well as your bracelets. Next thing, you open what used to be the bathroom door, and there sits your mother, although you seem to remember a funeral, and crying so hard your face swelled up like a baby's. Your mother looks like she always did, but you do not. Your bathrobe is all you have left, and you refuse to take it off. When you sleep, they sprinkle it with a peculiar smell and smear brown around the edges. Still, the belt feels like a firm comforting arm around your waist, steering you. One night you trick them. You close your eyes when the door opens a crack, then shuts. You can see the shadows of their feet under your door, then, all is shadows. Your eyes have a light of their own. You spring up, step around the cracks in the floorboards, and skitter down the hall. You know you can find the bathroom, but all the doors look the same. And there are so many! You feel a breath behind you. This is it! She's the one. Her neck writhes like the python you held once at a circus. She scratches at your hands, but you hold firm. "Grandma! Grandma!" In a dream of falling, your head hits before you wake. |
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