Sunday, June 27, 2010

Zephyr

zephyr\ZEF-er\ , noun;
A gentle, mild breeze.

Earlier, I swept
the boards of my apartment floor
and the pieces of dust and hair
would cling to the fibers of the broom
and float into the air
 
I watched them fall
and wondered where they would settle
if they would settle at all

Later, I laid
On sheets dusted with fine fibers,
looking at them and sighing, I began
plucking them between my fingertips
and blowing them away

They would flutter back
onto the fabric and stick there
while I looked at myself in the mirror

As a strand of hair fell to the floor.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Gambol

gambol \GAM-buhl\, intransitive verb:
1.
To dance and skip about in play; to frolic

If the horses could do it, why couldn't she? The day was cold and called for dancing.
The field open and littered with buttercups, yellow cups lifted up on thin stems; she tries to leap between them, but like dodging raindrops, this is impossible. She crushes them and they spring up again, only not as tall as before. She worries for them amidst her pirouettes. Would, or could, anything bad happen to her for stepping on such delicate and helpless things, so crisp and golden.
Before her mother can call her in from the afternoon, she quickly drops, falls among the blades of grasses, high enough to hide her, tall enough to tickle the blue of the sky, dapple the sun. The heads of the yellow flowers bend and reflect, highlight citrus spots on her skin. She closes her eyes and breathes in the onion grass. She searches with her fingers for the wide, striated blades of it. With a fist she wiggles and pulls and frees one of the fragrant bulbs and lifts it to her nose. A dusting of dirt falls on her face and lips. She scrunches up her nose and it falls away; she breathes in the sharp, earthy smell of the wild onion. Putting the grass into her mouth, she feels the groves of the blade with her tongue and then bites, snapping it in half with her teeth.
Her name is called. She hears the whap of a screen door closing. Through the vibrations of the grass, she can feel the approach of Snooks, the dog, before she can hear him. And then he is there, running over her and sniffing. He thinks this is a game. The girl is hiding and he has found her. In its excitement, the dog steps low on her stomach, forcing her to sit up and gasp for air.
"There you are," she hears her mother call.
"Here I am," she whispers.