Breadcrumb #280

SARA MARTIN

I think a lot about the dog Winn-Dixie and when he gets peanut butter stuck to the top of his mouth. When the blind lady feeds him in the back of her junk yard, with lemonade, the kind of one she squeezes into a pitcher, and makes sure to tell everyone she did it herself. I think about milk, too, what it takes to be as smooth and thick as milk. I think about milk, how a boy in the morning chugs a carton till the edges fold in and their stomachs, fold, over their waistband, that is mostly gray, sometimes green and plaid. I think about doctor’s rooms white lounge chairs, that squeak on paper and tear triangles in it, when you move. I think about weight, how I hover in front of the number so mama won’t see. I think about getting my blood taken, lots of sundays, after eating a banana besides the bottom- how sunday’s blood work feels like being on the doctor’s scale, and closing my eyes until she’s done. I think about sunday mass at 12:15, slouched like vanilla pudding in the pew. Pushing little lego men into my bear-like stomach so my sisters would watch them pop up in the air, like bungee cords. I think about when mama got mad at me for making a ruckus in church, and I laughed mostly then, because we weren’t supposed to.

    I think about the boy I love, how he stutters over things that come straight from the ground. The dirt- honey, from a bee’s stinger.  I think about how he’s dumbfounded by hollowed out peach pits if they’re not netted in sugarcane. I think about how he’s dumbfounded by densities- squash, and eggplant, that are heavy and light and medium, and why that is, and why that’s not. I think about what it’s like to have thin blonde hair, like the dog Winn-Dixie, instead of being milk, that bounces lego’s off it’s core, heavy and scared. I think about how the boy I love is dumbfounded by the weight of vegetables, like squash, or a carton. How he dreams of little Winn-Dixie's, that have the sweetest peach pits in the world. Like all us women’s peach pits should.

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