We threw it down the well. The well outside Gram's house up on the hill on the old homestead. We would spend hours throwing corn cobs and rotten apples down that well. And we all acted like it was nothing. But inside I think we were all terrified of that thing. You couldn't see the bottom and in the heat of summer sometimes, you couldn't hear the splash. We all knew what that meant. There was something down at the bottom of that well that wanted us more than it wanted the corn cobs. Once my cousin threw in a live chicken. We heard it squawking all the way to a nothing. A fast split second nothing that can't be explained by anything.
We threw it down the well, down into eternity. We watched it as it floated down. It swayed side to side then caught on a root protruding from the side of the hole. We took turns blowing it, trying to break it free from its bonds. Eventually with a large puff it did and continued its floating dance.
We knew eventually it would drop down out of sight and never be retrievable but neither of us dared admit the truth. We laughed as we watched the dance. We smiled as we looked at the beauty. We ignored that it was plunging to oblivion.
Eventually there was nothing left to see. It was frustrating to me, i was scared I'd never be able to get it back. (I should have known that if I hadn't been so caught up in watching the journey that I didn't pay attention to where it was going.)
We bickered and blamed, not wanting to admit we both had a part. We had both marveled and found joy in the dance until we realized it was too late.
the little girl who uses words bigger than her mouth sits in silent prayer a man sits next to her and tells her of items that washed up on the shore, a daffodil, a telegram, a calendar of moth wings. She is told to let go of October and November, those cold months where she normally threw things down a well. A collection of onion thin bibles, quran designed napkins, a lip print on linen, not her blood, no. It's time to throw things down the well, but this time you too must jump in, he says. The summer butterfly you hold between your palms must go with you, it's the only way you can come back, the tides will be your guide, now go!
We threw it down the well, we heard the splash and felt the smile. Mildred, I said, I’m a lucky guy. Someday, once, a while back, we threw yellow roses down, but you know their odor -- roses standing too long in stale. We were sick the rest of the week. There were no storks at all. People remebered their great nests. Tom is in Seattle and knows nothing of this, but then knowledge ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It was a splash with an echo that in hindsight was not a bit yellow, but I would be hard pressed to describe it else. This caused us great consternation at first.
A sheet of plywood blocked oblivion from the tennis shoes of children. Jack, the dog as big as a stunted mule, yanked the cover off, exposing more than spiders. Down in the darkness rusty water, the only non-alcoholic drink of our neighborhood, seamed its way through layers of sand. Someone said the hole would be a good place to dump a body. It happened, the ugly things, next door and up around the corner. A worried mother called the cops to rat out the untended well. City workers came, kept looking behind them, a dicey neighborhood you know, and brought in a gravel truck and filled the well. No one probed the bottom, afraid of what they would find, a broken bicycle, a dead cat, a little girl gone missing last spring.
For years we met at the ivy-covered well at the back edge of the local park. Green space they call it now, but then it was just a little-used neighborhood park with an old well behind the weedy tennis court. We immediately assumed it was a wishing well, my lanky friend Sally and me. We were full of prepubescent hormonal anxieties and wishes. Would we grow breasts? Would any guys notice us when we started high school? Would our moms let us go to the party? Sally started throwing pennies into the well, and soon we were both collecting them throughout the week so that we'd have a little stash of pennies to make our wishes on Saturday morning. It became a ritual for us.
Our wishes changed as we grew, or grew as we changed. We'd wish for Brandy to stop tormenting us, or for creepy Mr. Fisher to keep his hands off us after class. One day Sally wished that her mom and dad would stop fighting. She threw lots of pennies down the well for that wish. After her dad left, she had fewer wishes, but she'd still meet me at the well and watch as I made my wishes.
I started making my wishes silently, so Sally wouldn't know they were mostly for her. Before long, she stopped coming to the well at all. Probably because she had partied all night the night before.
Now when I come back to town, I make a point of visiting the well. It's still there, small and crumbling. It still somehow makes me hopeful, like a teenager looking toward the future, unlike Sally who threw her hopes down the well.
Across burning coals of loneliness and disbelief, you carry the gift of your naked truth to me. Navigating continents, a tumultuous sea of tears deliver you to a port of safety. Eyes and hands locked, I listen to your story. My heart races, I stop breathing, I feel light headed as you unburden yourself to me.
Ten years of your life, ten years of your precious love, wrenched from you, causing so much pain. You appear before me, so open and willing. My heart breaks with yours and yet, I feel a great sense of honor that you chose me to share your nightmare.
Carefully, we unravel the threads of your past. The spark you felt for him engulfs into flames of despair. Trust, clandestine passion, innocent children born into an unusual triad -- all abandoned overnight. I breathe in your ruinous fear, exhale empathy and hope.
Carefully, I pick through your shards of regret, my fingers bleed. Gingerly, I take the gift you gave me into my hands and lovingly reshape it into something new.
Two relative strangers, share the gift of sorrow. We gathered up the pieces and threw it down a well.
We didn’t know what to do with it, we’d worked so hard to get it, scrambled over terrain, kept our stories straight. The high-wire act with the triplets in organza, oh, we thought ourselves champions of the conjure, our accomplices with their tassels and devotion. Now it was all over our hands, stinging sharp as mustard, fumes visible on the air, wavy lines and diacritical marks to show the stench. The more we scrubbed the more it stuck and spread, staining the skin in strange patterns, a lily near your cock, an outline of the Virgin of Guadalupe over my right breast. There was no money in it, though, no advantage to be gained. We threw it into the sea, finally, following immediately after with our bodies, our long histories, our explanations and expiations. There it flows still, a small island, a yellow carpet wrapping us, our ardent lullaby and shroud.
8 comments:
We threw it down the well. The well outside Gram's house up on the hill on the old homestead. We would spend hours throwing corn cobs and rotten apples down that well. And we all acted like it was nothing.
But inside I think we were all terrified of that thing. You couldn't see the bottom and in the heat of summer sometimes, you couldn't hear the splash. We all knew what that meant. There was something down at the bottom of that well that wanted us more than it wanted the corn cobs.
Once my cousin threw in a live chicken. We heard it squawking all the way to a nothing. A fast split second nothing that can't be explained by anything.
We threw it down the well, down into eternity. We watched it as it floated down. It swayed side to side then caught on a root protruding from the side of the hole. We took turns blowing it, trying to break it free from its bonds. Eventually with a large puff it did and continued its floating dance.
We knew eventually it would drop down out of sight and never be retrievable but neither of us dared admit the truth. We laughed as we watched the dance. We smiled as we looked at the beauty. We ignored that it was plunging to oblivion.
Eventually there was nothing left to see. It was frustrating to me, i was scared I'd never be able to get it back. (I should have known that if I hadn't been so caught up in watching the journey that I didn't pay attention to where it was going.)
We bickered and blamed, not wanting to admit we both had a part. We had both marveled and found joy in the dance until we realized it was too late.
the little girl who uses
words bigger than her
mouth sits in silent prayer
a man sits next to her
and tells her of items
that washed up on the shore,
a daffodil, a telegram,
a calendar of moth wings.
She is told to let go of
October and November,
those cold months where
she normally threw things
down a well. A collection
of onion thin bibles, quran
designed napkins, a lip print
on linen, not her blood, no.
It's time to throw things down
the well, but this time you too
must jump in, he says. The
summer butterfly you hold
between your palms must go
with you, it's the only way you
can come back, the tides will
be your guide, now go!
We threw it down the well,
we heard the splash and felt the smile.
Mildred, I said, I’m a lucky guy.
Someday, once, a while back, we threw yellow roses down,
but you know their odor -- roses standing too long in stale.
We were sick the rest of the week.
There were no storks at all.
People remebered their great nests.
Tom is in Seattle and knows nothing of this,
but then knowledge ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
It was a splash with an echo that in hindsight was not a bit yellow,
but I would be hard pressed to describe it else.
This caused us great consternation at first.
A sheet of plywood blocked oblivion from the tennis shoes of children. Jack, the dog as big as a stunted mule, yanked the cover off, exposing more than spiders. Down in the darkness rusty water, the only non-alcoholic drink of our neighborhood, seamed its way through layers of sand. Someone said the hole would be a good place to dump a body. It happened, the ugly things, next door and up around the corner. A worried mother called the cops to rat out the untended well. City workers came, kept looking behind them, a dicey neighborhood you know, and brought in a gravel truck and filled the well. No one probed the bottom, afraid of what they would find, a broken bicycle, a dead cat, a little girl gone missing last spring.
For years we met at the ivy-covered well at the back edge of the local park. Green space they call it now, but then it was just a little-used neighborhood park with an old well behind the weedy tennis court. We immediately assumed it was a wishing well, my lanky friend Sally and me. We were full of prepubescent hormonal anxieties and wishes. Would we grow breasts? Would any guys notice us when we started high school? Would our moms let us go to the party?
Sally started throwing pennies into the well, and soon we were both collecting them throughout the week so that we'd have a little stash of pennies to make our wishes on Saturday morning. It became a ritual for us.
Our wishes changed as we grew, or grew as we changed. We'd wish for Brandy to stop tormenting us, or for creepy Mr. Fisher to keep his hands off us after class. One day Sally wished that her mom and dad would stop fighting. She threw lots of pennies down the well for that wish. After her dad left, she had fewer wishes, but she'd still meet me at the well and watch as I made my wishes.
I started making my wishes silently, so Sally wouldn't know they were mostly for her. Before long, she stopped coming to the well at all. Probably because she had partied all night the night before.
Now when I come back to town, I make a point of visiting the well. It's still there, small and crumbling. It still somehow makes me hopeful, like a teenager looking toward the future, unlike Sally who threw her hopes down the well.
Across burning coals of loneliness and disbelief, you carry the gift of your naked truth to me. Navigating continents, a tumultuous sea of tears deliver you to a port of safety. Eyes and hands locked, I listen to your story. My heart races, I stop breathing, I feel light headed as you unburden yourself to me.
Ten years of your life, ten years of your precious love, wrenched from you, causing so much pain. You appear before me, so open and willing. My heart breaks with yours and yet, I feel a great sense of honor that you chose me to share your nightmare.
Carefully, we unravel the threads of your past. The spark you felt for him engulfs into flames of despair. Trust, clandestine passion, innocent children born into an unusual triad -- all abandoned overnight. I breathe in your ruinous fear, exhale empathy and hope.
Carefully, I pick through your shards of regret, my fingers bleed. Gingerly, I take the gift you gave me into my hands and lovingly reshape it into something new.
Two relative strangers, share the gift of sorrow. We gathered up the pieces and threw it down a well.
We didn’t know what to do with it, we’d worked
so hard to get it, scrambled over terrain, kept our stories
straight. The high-wire act with the triplets in organza,
oh, we thought ourselves champions of the conjure,
our accomplices with their tassels and devotion.
Now it was all over our hands, stinging sharp as mustard,
fumes visible on the air, wavy lines and diacritical
marks to show the stench. The more we scrubbed
the more it stuck and spread, staining the skin in strange
patterns, a lily near your cock, an outline of the Virgin
of Guadalupe over my right breast. There was no money
in it, though, no advantage to be gained. We threw it
into the sea, finally, following immediately after
with our bodies, our long histories, our explanations
and expiations. There it flows still, a small island,
a yellow carpet wrapping us, our ardent lullaby and shroud.
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