Lee combs my hair
slowly and deliberately. Under
stars and under a milk way. She
uses a sea urchin. One fat star
shoots spew across the ink. Spews dust.
The dusty lands in our eyelashes.
It makes me blink thrice and cough. So she spoon feeds me them. Them stars them milk way. She spoon feeds me a bear, a beauty queen and a ladle. I
rehearse their names in my head and then I grow sleep. A whole garden. Not sure what their names mean
anymore. Everything grows in the
fat of sleep.
And she smells
like honeydew melon. I ask her if
I can call her melon skin. You’re
so plain, she says. Oh but all right if you must. I
insist that I like the words melon and skin. I like the words melon and skin, I
tell her again. What about honeydew? I’d bite a honeydew. And then she tells me, I take
it as a compliment then. Can I
call you goat-hog?
You know, she says.
There is an ancient word. No one should breathe it. A word of Yahweh.
So powerful this word… that if it’s spoken, the person speaking this
word would die, and so would everyone who’d hear it. This is no story, and this is not just hearsay. So she
says.
I don’t believe
her. What is it? I ask
wide-eye-wide-o. What is this
word? Perhaps you should tell me. Her sage eyes look at me. Green tea. Usually them eyes are periwinkle. Serious ever still.
Urchin combs my hair harder faster harder. Spoon feeds me planets. Moons. Cows and spoons.
Moth larvae crawl inside my mouth, my mouth agape from spoonful after
spoonful. Moth larvae inch up my
legs, up my swollen middle, up my neck, in my mouth. Threads of moth phlegm
inside.
So come on—what is
it? Feed me more. Spoon it to me.
Instead of telling
me this word, she starts to fill my ears with sand. This is better, she
says. Shhhh… Don’t fuss. Much better. Stuffs
it in my hole full. Yes, it’s true
I cannot hear her anymore. Sand raws my eardrum. I hear bah bum bah bum uh bah bum. Just her rhythms.
Bah bum bah bum. I slap her
face. As hard as I can
muster. My ears hurt. My hands hurt. Ginger fingers touch ears. Ginger fingers warm with blood. I slap her again for good measure. For children who are buried in
sand. For wolves who are always
buried in sand. My slap I hear
rhythm. Her Lee face looks
pained. On her cheek I left two
dumb brown stains. Shapes of my
long fingers. Shapes of
mushrooms. Such dumb bruises. And she looks at me. Eyes no longer green tea. Yes indeed, these are ochre and clear. Her mouth flutters moth-like.
I half-expect her
to slap my face thrice hard. Lee is like that. She often scowls.
Doesn’t though, and instead places my hands in her hands. Like we did when we were much younger
and wiser. Like we did when we
collected junebugs. Them popping
in our hands witless. Squeezed are
palms together with the brown beetle glue. We smile gummy hand in gummy hand.
The sky turns
ochre to match her eyes and pears.
She-mouth opens and closes ocean swell. Bah bum bah bum uh bah bum. Ochre eyes all I see.
They widen they bulge. They
are pregnant, expand too fast. The
crickets are silent. I count 1, 2,
3… Pump pump pump pop pop balloon pop.
Sand spurs shrapnel out of them eyes. She cries them.
Sand spurs emerge out of her skin. Skin so thin who’d know? And out her ears and head. I feel them come out of her hands. My hands are still in her hands you
know. Sand spurs pierce me. They are everywhere, rupturing out,
breaking her body into bits.
Ripping flesh. An arm falls
off. Sand spurs explode out from
the opening in her shoulder. Oh My Lee!
Oh dear Lee! Soon she is
just a pile of sand spurs. My
hands are still there though, like we’re still holding hands. There is only a pile of sand spurs in
my palm. I stay like that a little
while.
After a bit, I
clean my ears out in the canal water.
Oyster shells and rocks at my feet. My ears cleaner and I am no longer deaf. Press my ears to the dock. Hoping that underneath the dock, Lee’s
words are trapped in that hollow between water and wood. I hear nothing. Then her voice. Her last words. And then. Sand spur me too I say.