Breadcrumb #396

SHANE O'HANLON

it’s so nice to see big water

she is visiting from Berlin
sans coast or horizon
but before she lived in Petersburg
where on weekends they would go to the gulf
there was horizon
but first, she was from The North
from a place that no-one ever heard of
called Archangelsk
like, Archangel
her eyes are deep black pools trembling moonlight

it is near the White Sea that freezes over
but special boats can cut through the ice
there are bears there, she says, now
grinning like a school girl
pointing at a horse shoe crab
what is that?

she is my stepsister’s visitor
I have brought her to the sound
it is springtime
pollen streams from the bluffs thick as snow
a young couple takes a selfie
near the giant sleeping moss rocks
the sea rolls it’s shoulders on the shore
familiar rhythm the crests the rise and fall
In Germany they think we are idiots
familiar rhythm

recently she went back to her old home in The North
the people there have good character
but only see from their tiny perspective
now she sees wide like horizon
and that is why she stays in Berlin
despite feeling a bit off  
like in Soviet Russia
now rising to ExPat fervor
her power overwhelms me
when there used to be big department stores that sold many different things and each section would have different counters where they would give you a piece of paper and, so as not to lose a spot, your mother would leave you in the cashier line while she went around to gather the paper orders from the various counters to be brought back to you in the main line but standing there, and you can ask anyone who lived in Soviet times and they will tell you the same, you would be so terrified as the line moved that you would reach the cashier before your mother got back and they would ask you to pay up

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Breadcrumb #395

SUSAN CLARKSON MOORHEAD

As for dating, there wasn't much to do. By my second month on the island, I was wearing his younger brother's clothes, even his outgrown boots, something Creedence found somewhat unnerving when he slipped a hand beneath one of his brother's Henley pullovers to wander over my breasts. My suburban summer clothes were all wrong up here faced with the surprising cold, the mud slicked paths on the trail from the boats to the house, the surprise of daily passing rain, heavy as if a great grief had momentarily overwhelmed the sky. There was a constant dampness of living practically on the water, the house on stilts with all its unfinished pockets and edges, and those first weeks when I slept on one of the boats until they acquired a pregnant cat to introduce fear to the bold and rampant mice.

    We'd claim some reason to go to town, but it was just to get away from his family, too close in the small house. We'd take a dory across the bay to the mainland and walk the harbor down to the end where an old retired fisherman kept house in a boat that never went to sea anymore. In his working days, he'd been kind to Creedence, the oldest of a pack of kids, all boys, whose parents had escaped the lower 49 as they called it. Former hippies who couldn't abide by the whole peace/love thing, they had sulked their way through Alaska until they found their spot, cheap land on an island thirty minutes across a glacier bay. They named their boys after favorite bands, taught themselves how to build a house, grow and forage for food, can their own jams and to pickle everything. People at the salmon cannery told me they were considered to be a little crazy, but, as the old fisherman winked at me, who wasn't in Alaska?

    He had a great story about a bear swimming all the way across from the island lured by the smell of grilling bacon and halibut steaks on the old man's hibachi set up on the dock. The bear hoisted himself up on the wooden slats of the walkway, hunkered down and swiped an eager paw at the sizzling bacon. "I crept right up behind that ole bear and booted his rump right back into the bay," he said, roaring with laughter. In another version of the story, he'd whacked the bear over the head with his cane. No matter which way he told it, we'd smile, listening until enough time had passed that he'd say yes when we asked to borrow the truck, a rusted Ford that Creed kept running for the old man.

“The bear hoisted himself up on the wooden slats of the walkway, hunkered down and swiped an eager paw at the sizzling bacon.”

    Sometimes we'd go to the dump where Bobby, a pal of his from high school kept watch from the back of his pick-up, rifle in hand, ready to fire in the air or off to the side as a warning shot for any of the bears snuffling through the garbage when they got too curious about folks driving up to ditch their trash. The first time we drove up, Creed was talking to Bobby and we stood by his truck overlooking the vast field of piled up garbage. I saw a stack of books tilted into a mountain of discards and went to take a look. Rounding a tall heap of refuse, eye on the books, hardbacks no less, I failed to notice a very large brown bear chomping at something one garbage stack over. We both saw each other at the same time and froze, and then the bear stood up as if reaching that great height would allow him to make sense of me in his small round eyes. I noticed the ragged strands of his meal hanging from his mouth, the impossible length of his curved sharp claws, and then I heard Creed's choked voice not far behind me, urgent and low, saying, "Baby, don't turn around, don't run." I let his voice hold me like a praying hand, walked backwards slowly, talking low and sweet to the bear who dropped to all fours and took a few inquiring steps my way. "I mean you no harm, stay back, please, bear, stay back, " I said in a slow repeat. He paused when he heard the truck, Bobby roaring over to pick me and Creed up, and the bear loped off. "You make a fine couple," Bobby yelled at us in the truck, "two damn fools!" but when I tried to talk no words came and anyway, Creed gave a shake of his head to hush me. Bobby's hands were shaking on the steering wheel.

    Creedence was due to head out on a boat for a job, staying away for three weeks while I endured his family who only endured me. They'd liked me enough when I was money in their pocket, a girl who'd come up from Arizona to work in the salmon cannery, looking for a room to rent. But once we started going out, they didn't like me anymore. Their oldest boy was their pride and joy. I heard his mother hissing in the kitchen at him, "why her? All those nice girls in town and you pick her?".

    The night before he was to leave we borrowed the truck and he took me for a drive. We headed farther out from town than we had ever been and part of me hoped we would just keep going. But he turned onto a highway, driving over a spill of chain link that had once roped the road off, a tilted rusting sign saying we were east bound on 84. We drove a mile or two, whip fast, the wind rushing by our open windows, not a soul beside us on the road. He started slowing down and it felt like the forest was closing in. He slowed to walking speed and then braked, the road ending abruptly in front of us. Nothing but a wall of fir trees and the smell of pitch. "They ran out of money, " he said with a grin. "Does that just beat all?"

    I thought he would reach for me then and turned towards him, but he was pulling out a paper bag he'd tucked under the seat. He pulled out two oranges, the palm sized ones that cost five dollars a piece at the market in town that we never bought, the price too high. He handed me one, and we peeled our oranges in the car, the air filling up with bright citrus notes. We separated our oranges into segments, eating them slowly, and then I fed him a piece and he fed me one. Each bite seemed sweeter because of the portion of bitterness left in the strands of pith that still clung to the fruit. I wiped my hands on his brother's jeans that I wore and settled in the crook of his arm, and we looked out at the fence of trees in front of us, listening to the wind stir in the branches.

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Breadcrumb #394

SHIMETSUKAGE

growing old is mandatory;
remaining a child all your life isn’t.

i prefer my health.
want me gone? might as well
put some unnatural causes
in a bottle.

when you fall down,
you wonder what else you can do whilst
you’re down there.

you’re getting old when you get the same
sensation from a rocking chair that you once
got from a roller coaster.

it’s frustrating when you know the answers
but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.

time may be a great healer,
but a lousy beautician.

wisdom comes with age,
but age comes alone.

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Breadcrumb #393

JOSH DALE

One of the highlights of elementary school was the variety show. It was a grand production led by Mrs. L. She instated the stage crew, talent selection, emcee, art, and all the production equipment. It was held in the afternoon on Friday and parents and siblings sat in rows of metal chairs. The entire 3rd and 4th-grade chorus sang: “We welcome you all to our variety show. Lots of different things to see before you go…and don’t forget to cheer for the stage and art crew. That’s what God wants us to do.”. I recall doing a skit with two other boys, J. and T., for a ‘modern’ rendition of some boy band. We danced and sung into a fixed microphone; K. was watching my shoddy routine. Some others sung, read poetry, performed talents one could only dream of. K. and her friends performed something similar, like cogs in the machine of 90’s pop culture. I forget who won the ‘best act’; I think it was an underclassman singing a show tune. I sat far away from K. for the remainder of the show.

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Breadcrumb #392

COLLEEN ENNEN

Pull impatiently on your father’s hand.

    Wait for the crossing light, your mother will say.

    Try to be good. Fidget. Watch the red and brown leaves swirl; listen to them crunch under your new boots-a-half-size-too-big. Feel the cold on your cheeks and nose; feel the warmth inside your knit mittens and knit tights.

    I hope it doesn’t rain, your mother will say.

    I don’t like the look of those clouds, your father will say.

    The light will turn green.

    Skip when you cross the intersection. Wave at the police officer with the whistle and yellow vest. Phtweeee! his whistle will shriek. There will be many families all smushed together on the other side. You will see other children running and laughing and drinking hot chocolate. Ask your father—pretty please—for a hot chocolate. He will grumble about the price, but he will buy it. It will be watery and hot and so sweet sweet sweet. Hold with both hands, careful.

    You will hear the music first. Dart forward, around the knees and hips, and under the bags of the strangers. Do not hear your mother shout. Press your quivering body to the barricade.

    The turkey will be thirty feet tall and riding a truck. It will have two small pilgrims on its back. A woman holding a pumpkin will hand you a red balloon. Another woman will give the boy next to you chewing gum.

    Wish you had been given chewing gum instead.

    Look up. Beautiful giants will swim across the sky, lead by long strings. Charlie Brown. Babar. Kermit. Shriek with delight. Clap.

    Santa fifty-feet-long will loom over you. His shadow will stretch half the block. Santa six-feet-tall will follow on the street with his sleigh and his reindeer and his Mrs. Santa. Wave at him until your elbow hurts.

“His shadow will stretch half the block.”

    Time to go now kiddo, your mother will say.

    That’s the end of the parade, she will say.

    Ask to say just five minutes more—But look there are more balloons! Please just to see those? Point down the street. There will be a host of shining white figures floating uptown.

    A new part of the parade maybe, your father will say.

    I didn’t see anything about it in the paper, your mother will say.

    The shining white figures will come closer. Watch them. When they reach your block you will see that the figures are children. They will swoop and twirl and play. Shriek with delight. Clap.

    There’s no strings, your mother will say. Her hand will be on your shoulder.

    Where are the people controlling them, your father will say.

    A shining white girl about your size and age will pass overhead. She will be dressed in old fashioned clothes like the costumes you have for your doll.

    Wave at her. She will wave back.

    Smile at her. She will smile back.

    Hold out your arm and open your mittened hand. Watch your red balloon float up up up to the shining white girl. Watch it pass through the space of her chest and keep floating towards the blackened clouds.

    The screaming will start further up the block. Your father will lift you to his chest. He will try to push through the crowd but it will be too thick.

    Hurry, your mother will say. Her hand will hover over your head.

    Above you the shining white girl will burst. In a spray. Of blood.

    More inverted pops—like gum sucked in through your teeth—will sound up and down the street.

    Shriek with delight.

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