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Jessamine
by Lynn Fister. October 2008.
She’s the sad lady.
We go there to see her. She
has vines for hair and that’s where the Carolina jessamine blooms. Pick the yellow trumpets from her hair
and make her a crown. She-skin made of slate, etched rude by a jackhammer. Her thick vine hair. We put her flower crown there, and she
does not smile. She is only stone.
We are only five and we do not understand. But I sew her things at night on the
dock. My mother doesn’t know. My father doesn’t know. And you don’t even know.
One new moon I made her a katydid out of leaves from a
tupelo. Thought it clever even
though it didn’t even look like a katydid and the stitches were messy. Greasy from my hands. I wrap it in cellophane with one
withering bloom. A yellow jessamine.
When parents snore, I put my presents in a knapsack. Go to her house. I pretend to snore and then go to her
house. Her cat with the white
belly knew I was coming. He’d meet
me half way. Don’t know how I knew
his name. I’ve never asked, but I
tell you it’s Xue. He is about
five thousand years old and has a clear voice.
“Xue,” I’d say, “Thank you so much for meeting me. I didn’t want to be alone tonight. There are creepers about all the time.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Xue would say.
“Like over there.
There’s a menace. He always
stares so. I hear him eating
constantly. I don’t want to know
what he is eating.”
“Don’t fret so, “ Xue says. “He won’t bother you.”
I see his yellow face.
One day he’ll eat us, I
think. I see our shadows as we
walk. The light always comes from
behind. And the streets always
stink of confederate jasmine.
Always summer where we live.
And we would end up at her house. She would already be sitting on her porch. Her hair climbs out of her head and
wraps around the porch stairs and banisters. Some tendrils wrap around the roof gutters. She is so sad. This we just know.
Yes, I kiss her cold cheek and lay my gift at her feet. There are no shoes on her feet. Cracked
and thicket are her toes. Pieces
flake off like mica. Mica without
shimmer, that is. She doesn’t say
a word. Does not even twitch or
shudder or sigh. So Xue walks me
back half way, but cannot go any further.
We say good-byes wordless and solemn.
The next morning I’d look on her porch on the way to
school. The present would be
gone. She would be gone. Some broken vine would still be wrapped
around banisters. Already a bit
brown.
“She took her present,” I’d acknowledge to Sarah.
“Who? No one
lives there silly.”
“But we go there all the time.” I’d say over and over. “But we go there all the time.”
It took me a long time to get Sarah to come with me at
night. After she did her evening
rosary with her mother, she had to sneak out a window. We both stood in our yellow
nightgowns. They billow and coo
coo before Jessamine. Her hair
wrapping all over the house. We
could see it growing, caressing the railings. The house seemed to whimper soft.
“She looks so sad,” Sarah voiced sober but creamy. Thinking she was cream, Xue licked her.
“She looks so sad.”
“That’s why I bring her presents.” I slight and sandy and a
bit frog-like. And I set down a
peacock at her cracked feet. A
peacock made of insect wings.
Cellophaned with one dried yellow jessamine.
“I will sew with you at night,” Sarah promised. And so we did and we were five. We were six. We were seven.
Eleven. And then there came
an evening we didn’t sew.
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