Breadcrumb #685

ANNA GENEVIEVE WINHAM

I stand next to him, like I always do,
ask if he wants to be alone, return to the car
and watch him miss her, feeling broken too. 

A flickering screen’s crackling voice does not imbue
the bubbly cuddles she’d give if she weren’t far.
I stand next to him. Like I always do

I say something nice, lighten the load, or try to,
but it’s not right. There she is. Here we are, 
and watch: he misses her. Feeling broken, to

rush time we find night too soon. He knew
her absence would scab each day a scar.
I stand, next, to him. Like I, all ways do

return to ruminations on this glue
which binds them, seals a door once left ajar.
And watch him miss her! Feeling broke in two

I know I have to go, but linger through
another moon, another turn around the star:
I stand, “next!” to him, like I always do, 
and watch him miss her feeling broken too.

• • •

Breadcrumb #684

KOSCINA RENAUD-TATE

Never quiet
No street is silent
On the porch
With my head in the clouds
Sweet scents of summer
The warm touch of the wind
Gives me life
When I’m near death
Revives me
A place I know too well
A porch that holds many stories
My safety blanket 

Fire hydrants without the cap
Children skipping through
Forceful waters
A hot summer’s day
Laughter overtakes the block
Smells of charcoal burn my nose
Mr. Softee sings to me
Oh to be a Brooklyn kid again 

The sweet sounds of the steel pan
Hastily creeps throughout the parkway
Bright and colorful feathers perfectly placed
Massive headdresses and skimpy costumes
They dance, jump, and hop
It’s a celebration
A poof of powder takes me away 

Venturing out of the borough
I hop in a dollar cab
Tightly packed like sardines
I roll down the window
Brownstones line the street
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing
Blasting Hot97 from a brownstone’s stoop
These streets are always on the move
The Jamaican accents linger in the air
As reggae blares over the speakers
Sharp turns and honking horns
Speed demon drivers
I finally arrive 

Hot and muggy underground
Swarms of people anxiously wait
The 2 train screeches to a halt
The announcement plays
Flatbush Avenue Brooklyn College 

Where to?
Manhattan or the Bronx?
Staten Island or Queens?
These four complete the five
A quick visit with an undecided agenda
Friends or shopping
Sightseeing or lunch 

I abandon the porch
But I always return
To the place I fell in love with
My birthplace
My home
The Brooklyn kid
Lives in me

• • •

Breadcrumb #683

JANE E. VALENTINE

Last summer a friend stumbled across an article about a local, homegrown museum: The National Museum of Ship Models and Sea History, incongruously located in tiny, incontrovertibly inland, Sadorus, Illinois. The article was brief, but intriguing - the museum, open mostly by appointment, is dedicated to maritime history as told via ship models, and features hundreds of scale models of historical vessels. We were fascinated, so my friend called the museum’s owner, Charles Lozar. It took a few calls to reach him, but we eventually managed to schedule a visit the following Saturday.  We collected a few more friends, loaded ourselves into a car, and drove the short way from Champaign down to Sadorus.

The museum is in a former general store, and the storefront was filled with a jumble of models, dioramas, artwork, books - even a lighthouse-shaped dollhouse. It was reminiscent of a curiosity shop, and faintly indicative of what we would find within - an overwhelming wonderland of maritime models and miscellanea. Charles opened the door, and ushered us inside, cautioning us to turn sideways so as to not bump into the 27-foot long model of the Queen Mary dominating the front room. It was built, in three 9-foot sections, from over one million toothpicks by a Chicago-based enthusiast who later donated it to the museum. "I almost asked him what his wife thought of his hobby", our host mentioned, "and then I realized that of course he doesn't have a wife." 

“We collected a few more friends, loaded ourselves into a car, and drove the short way from Champaign down to Sadorus.”

White-bearded, spectacled, and corduroy-clad, Charles could play a convincing ship captain in a movie.To call him the museum’s owner does not encompass the fullness of this man’s role: he is proprietor, founder, collector, walking encyclopedia. An architect and former professor with a passion for all things maritime, he’s been collecting ship models for decades. As he led us on a winding path through and around his displays (the Queen Mary was not the only exhibit we had to turn sideways to squeeze past), he pointed out and described some of the highlights - a Hollywood model of a Nile riverboat used in the Elizabeth Taylor film "Cleopatra"; an 1802 model of a 16th century Dutch galleon; a U-boat, suspended above our heads (the taller among us had to duck), from the movie "The Hunt for Red October"; a cutaway of the Queen Mary, with tiny staterooms and ballrooms and bathrooms and portholes; models of clipper ships that transported the outputs of California gold mines around the world; an elegant Japanese fishing boat. The museum smelled like a used book shop, and the tightly packed exhibits, only partly organized, were mostly in old-fashioned wooden-framed display cases or sitting on open shelves. The world outside had receded, replaced by a sense of history, tinged blue from the maritime artwork (oil paintings, lithographs, vintage cruise line advertisements) packing the walls. Despite the sometimes chaotic arrangement of items, nothing seemed out of place as we worked our way around the first floor. From knee-level to eye-level and above, the serried models caught my gaze one after another: triremes and aircraft carriers and yachts, matte black and dark maroon and patinaed wood that looked silky-smooth and called out to be touched (I refrained). Everything somehow fit together.

And Charles fit, too; this is not a museum that anyone could have built; it is one only he could have. I could hear as he spoke his delight in his collection, and in showing it off. And unlike some small museums, where the docents fill your ears with endless insignificant details, almost everything he told us was interesting. How he found and bought all the Hollywood models, and why they are so large (if the models are too small then the way the water moves and sprays against the boat doesn’t look right). That one of the most enduring success stories of the California gold rush was that of Levi Strauss, who bought the worn out sails from clipper ships to make the jeans he sold to prospectors. He showed us around the first floor, told us how the rooms were arranged on the second, and set us to wander on our own.

Downstairs, Charles’s narration had tied everything together; his models aren’t mere objects, they are illustrations of the human connections to the water that dominates the world: trade, warfare, fishing, travel, piracy, pleasure. I slid my hand along the wooden railing as I ascended the stairs, and wondered to myself whether he had models of some of my favorite ships: the Vasa (a 17th-century Swedish ship which sank in harbor on its maiden voyage, as its engineers predicted; and which was raised hundreds of years later), the Kon-Tiki (which Norwegian author and explorer Thor Heyedahl built in the style of pre-Colombian Peruvian ships and sailed to Polynesia, proving that precolonial South Americans could have done so), and a Korean turtle ship (possibly the world's first fully armored ship, used to powerful effect against the Japanese navy). Ships that speak of the hubris of kings, the courage of explorers, the ingenuity of necessity. 

The second floor was no less full than the first, but had more variety - not just models and artwork, but scrimshaw, ships in bottles, antique weaponry, ship-building tools, navigation equipment, and souvenirs - mostly traditional dress and jewelry - from far-flung locations American sailors had visited. 19th century Chinese armor; Polynesian headdresses, African masks, Indian wedding clothes. We craned our necks or crouched down as our eyes peeled back the layers of items. Our voices were sometimes muffled by intervening shelves as we called out to each other: "Did you see these Chinese navigation tools?", "Here's the model from "Ben Hur!", "Come look at these flintlock pistols." I found the Vasa, the Kon-Tiki, and, with a thrill of completion, the turtle ship. 

Eventually Charles came up to join us, pointing out some of what we had missed, enriching what we'd seen. Did you know that you can chart changes in English ship-building via changes in English furniture? For centuries, the English used old-growth oaks to make ship masts; when they'd depleted them, they switched to maple, and then walnut. As leftover wood from the shipyards was used to make furniture, you see the same shifts in tables and chairs and bedsteads; another human link to the sea, extended inland and into daily life.

One of the last things Charles told us is that 20 years ago he went on a trip to Ireland and England with his wife and daughter. For two weeks he went along with whatever they wanted to do, knowing that on the final day he'd visit the destination he most cared about - the National Maritime Museum in London. The appointed time came, his wife and daughter left on an expedition of their own, and he made his way to Greenwich, only to find that the museum was closed for renovations. But don't worry; the last thing he told us was that later that month he was bound once again for the UK. This time, he said, he had checked, and the museum would be open. I hope it’s as magical, and as human, as his is.

• • •

Breadcrumb #682

KATHRYN POWELL

I. 

What I mean by mother is the woman I imagine / swarths of memories pieced over the plains of my childhood / those plains /  I mean the mosaic of memories / barefoot in the backyard, stubbed toe on sandbox / apple tree falling green orbs watch for worms / memories / I mean eat cake when it thunders / I mean sit on the porch in the thunder held close to her breast / as the grey waves roll / her brown curls caress my ears / face buried in her neck / we count together: one / two / three / how many miles will it be / storms can’t scare us / though she taught me / to be prepared: cans in basements, bathroom battery radios, extra blankets / These memories build a mother.

II. 

My mother / I say she is my mother, because I mean she is / mine / she named me / raised me / cultivated me / my / mother / taught me to write straight with my papers slanted / circled misspellings and filled in the commas / slipped poems in my lunchbox / I grew tall / I am older now / I see myself in my mother / I mean I see my mother in / me / filling the dishwasher bowls first / drafting small poems to give away / biting the tongue to think / but I am not / a mother / and my mother was not / always / my mother / who was she before / our prairie / this woman who was not mine / I do not know her.  

III. 

That prairie sky, I mean / that space that always reminds me / of mother / my / mother / prairie sky / big bright and blue or suddenly grey / wisps of cloud floating by / out in a blazing sunset / I remember summer evenings / driving with my mother / across prairie plains / Once she turned to me and said / I love the prairie / because I love the wind / car windows rolled down / brown curls skipped across her shoulders / orange sun dipped / under golden tassel-tipped / fields / When was this memory planted? / I don’t remember / All I remember / is that the wind / pulls at us both / calling us to look / Look up / little ones / see how little you are / says the breeze / in its own little poem / as it pulls our long hair / swirling strands out the car window / on a summer day.

• • •

Breadcrumbs #681

MT VALLARTA

“[A] state of such near perfect replication that the difference [between] the original and the copy becomes almost impossible to spot.” – D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity

I first understood rage when my mother threw a vase at my father.

He tried to dodge it like a runner sliding into home base. Inside, were my little sister’s vitamins, the ones that tasted like multicolored sand. I knew she hadn’t really been taking them. I can see my mother’s already-wrinkled fingers clenching the vase like an outfielder about to tag a player.

I don’t remember if it hurt my father. But I can see the shards. Their edges so crooked and white, like shattered bone on sidewalk.

Three months ago, I found out my father had cancer.

He was so confident, so sure he didn’t have it. My father has always been good at denial. So good, he feasts on his lies. So good, he forgets I also like women, and that I moved in with my partner after only eight months of being together. When you lie so much, you start to forget that your words are not truths. If I am good at spinning truths for myself, I learned from my father.

“I can see my mother’s already-wrinkled fingers clenching the vase like an outfielder about to tag a player.”

Radiation or surgery. Radiation or surgery.

I was the one he brought to his appointment. When I asked where was my mother, he huffed and jerked his neck. Sometimes I worry my parents will split me in half. I talk to my mother on the phone. For hours, she wails about my dad. I read, edit cover letters, and play Tetris in the background. Leave him. “He cannot cook. He will starve.” Forgive him. “I can’t. I am so mad.” Forget it. “If I forget, it’ll be like my feelings were never true, never there.” Sometimes the back of my head hurts so much I wake up somewhere else. During my second night in Victoria, I woke with my arms at my sides, my spine a perfect line.

“Wow, you can never sleep on your back.

“I know. Isn’t Sam the freakiest?”

Radiation or surgery. Radiation or surgery.

I don’t know if my father is afraid to die. The only thing I know he is afraid of is my mother. She is afraid of being alone. So afraid, that when my sisters and I went to college, she would lay out our home clothes on top of our beds like cutout shorts and shirts for flimsy paper dolls. While we were on vacation in Portland and all of us were still sleeping, I woke to my mother talking while julienning carrots for ramen.

“This is not nutritious. Just add carrot. This is too plain. Just add carrot.”

I am tired of pretending I cannot hear.

Three months ago, my father finally confessed that he cheated on my mother.

“He is just like your grandmother.” My lola was a slut. My father is the last legitimate son, my sisters and I the last full-blooded heirs to a farm that always scared us, a house that always felt so big and so empty even though there were four mattresses in one bedroom and a wooden round table with eight matching chairs next to the kitchen. There used to be nine, but one of my uncles killed himself. They say that’s why my grandfather’s legs are so bow-legged. His body so crooked.

“If you get radiation, you might still die.” My father doesn’t care about my mother’s opinions.

“I do not have a child outside.” “What would you do if you had a half sibling?” My sister says she will never accept it. I think I am too disinterested. It is another lesson my father has taught: if you don’t care, it won’t hurt. It won’t even sting at all.

I am already older than my father when he arrived in the United States.

In 1986, he watched his first baseball game. My older sister was born earlier that year. My mom gave birth without him, but it was fine. When I was born six years later, she had to cook and clean the apartment as soon as she arrived from the hospital. Maybe that’s why you get so caught up in work. Ever since I was born, I have never stopped watching my mother labor. Imagine if you had to work that hard non-stop. What would you do. I don’t know. Die bitter.

Radiation or surgery. Radiation or

My father blamed his infidelity on my mother’s menopause. She said sex hurt too much. I once blamed my blackouts on my birth control pills until I learned it was Sam putting our hands on people’s throats. I always wondered where I was during recess. Third grade was no longer a blur. I now know why I cried when the milkweeds in my neighborhood died. When I thought I was alone on the playground, Sam was helping me catch bugs.

Radiation or

My mother once compared my father to a stump. Pretty much dead, only has one usage. I know too much about what my father thinks of my mother. He thought she was the prettiest girl in town. “The neighbors always said your father performed some kind of dark magic to get me to marry him.” I thought love was magic. Not slow poison.

“Can you take me to my next appointment?” My father knows I am on fellowship. It has been three months and he still hasn’t fixed my car. I am dreading the day I will need to see a mechanic.

Radiation

“It’s okay, my hair has already started to fall off.” This is the first time I hear my father acknowledge his frailty out loud. My great aunt once said a curse fell on my father’s family. There were too many mutations his ancestors died from. My mother says I have to watch myself, be careful with my body. I still eat French fries once a week. The only thing slower than dying is waiting for my father’s honesty.

Radiation

“I thought therapy was about sharing your feelings.” Dad, I won’t say you need it. If you’ve lived with yourself this long, not even God can pry the truth from your mouth.

• • •