A Maze Me (3 page)

A girl wrote a letter on an orange

and placed it on a doorstep.

That day the sky tasted fresh as mint.

Last night at sunset

two jet trails made a giant X in the sky

right over our city.

I was reading Spanish in the porch swing

when my neighbor walking her two dogs

pointed up, shouting happily,

“X marks the spot! YOU ARE HERE!”

White trails against dusky blue.

I stared at her. I said, “You are here too.

We are all here.”

And I got goose bumps.

Because I knew the boy I haven't met yet

is here too, somewhere close by,

and I knew he was looking up.

I could feel him looking.

One is always walking

                           
in front of the others.

Maybe this is the one

who really wanted to come.

They didn't all want to come,
that's for sure.

Someone is pushing a baby carriage.

The baby is sleeping, sunburned,
or fussy.
Maybe the baby didn't want to come.
The baby would rather be

                           
crawling around on a rug.

 

             
That girl would rather be home reading.

Very little conversation
is going on.

Maybe two people tipping their heads together

asking why they came.

No one smiles at me or anyone else going by.

             
They are clumsy, carrying towels, jugs,

                           
beach bags, hats.

It is hard to walk in a group.

When our English teacher gave

our first writing invitation of the year,

Become a kitchen implement

in 2 descriptive paragraphs,
I did not think

butcher knife or frying pan,

I thought immediately

of soft flour showering through the little holes

of the sifter and the sifter's pleasing circular

swishing sound, and wrote it down.

Rhoda became a teaspoon,

Roberto a funnel,

Jim a muffin tin

and Forrest a soup pot.

We read our paragraphs out loud.

Abby was a blender. Everyone laughed

and acted giddy but the more we thought about it,

we were all everything in the whole kitchen,

drawers and drainers,

singing teapot and grapefruit spoon

with serrated edges, we were all the

empty cup, the tray.

This,
said our teacher,
is the beauty of metaphor
.

It opens doors.

What I could not know then

was how being a sifter

would help me all year long.

When bad days came

I would close my eyes and feel them passing

through the tiny holes.

When good days came

I would try to contain them gently

the way flour remains

in the sifter until you turn the handle.

Time, time
. I was a sweet sifter in time

and no one ever knew.

I can't wait to be older and free.

We were sitting at Dana's kitchen table,

working on our history project.

Free of schoolwork, able to choose

the ways I spend my days
,

but Dana's mom turned her face

to me sharply.

“Missy,” she said (not my name),

“you'll never be as free

as you are now.”

Then she turned back to

cooking dinner.

The air felt thinner in the room.

Thinner, and sad.

Can air feel sad?

Words have secret parties.

Verbs, adjectives, and nouns

meet outside their usual boundaries,

wearing hats.

MOODY feels doubtful about attending

and pauses near the door, ready to escape.

But she's fascinated by DAZZLE.

BEFRIEND throws a comforting arm

around her shoulder.

LOST and REMEMBER huddle

in the same corner, trading

phone numbers.

I serve punch.

Do not sit on the edge of the open moonroof.

Do not operate the moonroof if falling snow

has caused it to freeze shut.

(I thought it was a sunroof, actually.)

Do not place coins into the accessory socket.

The cup holder should not be used while driving.
Well, when then?
While parked at home?
Perhaps at midnight, with insomnia?
Hi, Mom, I think I'll just go have a glass of milk
in the driveway.

If you need to dispose of the air bag

or scrap the vehicle . . .

Never allow anyone to ride in the luggage area.

Do not operate the defogger longer than necessary.

Please remove necktie or scarf while working on

engine.

Never jack up the vehicle more than necessary.

A running engine can be dangerous.

you take it off

of course you take it off

it doesn't worry you

it isn't your shoe

Down by the quiet little river

between the old missions,

white cranes stand listening.

It is hard to tell if they are awake.

Their elegant necks barely turn

as another crane floats low

among them, touching ground.

One dips a beak swiftly into water

then springs back.

What have they seen across the long sky?

It hides inside the layered feathers

of their heads.

They said something mean about me

and didn't notice it was mean.

So my heart wandered

into the rainy night without them

and found a canopy

to hide under.

My eyes started

seeing through things.

Like gauze.

Old self through new self.

My flexible body

went backwards

and forwards

in time.

It's hard to describe but true:

I grew another head

with better ideas

inside my old head.

Because of the hair on the head

of the girl in front of me in school,

daily I travel slopes and curves.

I detour past the ribbon.

The clip is a dam.

I want to pluck it out—

surprise!

Inventing new methods for parting

on a blue-lined page, I make

math go away.

Embrace the math of hair.

Layers and levels of hair.

Some hair grows into ropes.

Rivers of waves, blunt cut.

Oh what will I make of my messy messy hair?

Stiff lip won't help.

Stiff arm breaks too.

You need soft touch.

Try on soft shoe.

Hard voice cracks back.

Hard head heats up.

Mark that sharp note.

Bypass “So what?”

Tender heart lasts long.

Who looked? Who heard?

Let those grips go.

Birds get last word.

It wasn't that they were so

high, exactly,

they were more

low-down,

close-to-the-ground,

I could rub them

the way you touch a cat

that rubs against your ankles

even if he isn't yours.

So yes I feel lonely without them.

Now that I know the truth,

that I only dreamed someone liked me,

the cat has curled up in a bed of leaves

against the house and I still have to do

everything I had to do before

without a secret hum

inside.

None of the cats

will let me touch them

I bring clean bowls

of fresh milk

They won't drink it

till I'm back in the house

Tuxedo cat looks up

I'm at the window

Flick! He ran

into the bushes

Is this what it feels like

to grow older and return to

the neighborhood

you once knew?

poke their shovels into the dirt.

Whatever they turn over interests them,

not just what they plant.

If there are roots or worms,

if the soil is darker, or mottled,

maybe the cap of an old bottle,

a snail, an ancient tunnel

left by a burrowing mole.

They know there is plenty of ground.

Every place has a warm old name.

The plumed grasses bend backwards

in the breeze, their job in life,

and they are proud of it.

My body is a mystery
a magical geography of skin

It keeps me in

             
And I travel in it everywhere

sometimes it seems to beat me there

and then we meet again

Oh my eyes are the windows
and my face is the sky

And my legs are the trees that hold me

My hands are the branches and my head is a box
and I spend my lifetime picking locks

My body is a symphony
a tuba and a piccolo and drum

                                           
I hear some drum

And it sometimes seems to beat so low

And other times it makes me want to run

                           
and then I have to run

Oh my blood is the music
and my voice finds the notes

And my lungs are conductors singing
One! Two!

               
And I sometimes lose the melody but I

never lose the dream
of the songs that might come through

Because my body is a mystery

                           
a magical geography of skin

that keeps me in

                           
And I travel in it everywhere

             
sometimes it seems to beat me there and then

We meet again

                                           
Oh we always meet again

A lady was quoted in the newspaper.

“It is not so hard to feel wise.

Just think of something dumb you could say,

then don't say it.”

I like her.

I would take her gingerbread

if I knew where her house was.

Julia Child the famous chef said,

“I never feel lonely in the kitchen.

Food is very friendly.

Just looking at a potato, I like

to pat it.”

Staring down

makes you feel tall.

Staring into someone else's eyes

makes you feel not alone.

Staring out the window during school,

you become the future,

smooth and large.

I'm not me,

I only work for me.

This feels like

a secret motor

chirring inside my pocket.

I think,
She will be so glad

when she sees the homework

neatly written.

She will be relieved

someone sharpened pencils,

folded clothes
.

At the stoplight

faces in the next window

are plaster-cast ceramics,

blank, unoriginal.

At school my friends drag in glumly.

Our teacher says, “What can you expect?

It's Monday.”

So what?!

I'm Naomi!

You're Rosa Lee!

Today a truck heaped with watermelons

at the corner—
fat, stacked bodies

striped like animals

The sign said “75 cents
and up
”

An old man shaded his head with a newspaper

“And up”—the great American twist

You know he meant one midget for 75

 

The other hundred, $3.50

May I describe the contents

of my grandmother's kitchen

in Nova Scotia in 1949?

Grinding mill, butter churn,

hand-hemmed white cotton towels,

pale purple swatch of linen

spread diagonally

across a scarred wooden table

where Grandmother

kneaded and stirred.

A platter rimmed with violets,

some of the petals rubbed away.

And the crock of wooden spoons, of course,

the giant matches in a box . . .

There was something in the oven, always,

a streak of patience in the air.