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Before
I was an egg in two parts in my grandmother’s hand. I was an apple
in my grandfather’s hand. In the flood of a dream, I was the quavering
face of a stone. In a glass bowl, swaddled in a white towel, I was three
eggs that whispered to each other the old stories — wishes, black brooms,
earth that crumbled like cake in the mouths of lost children. I was the long
peel of an apple ratcheted over a blade, flooded onto a cutting block
into the shape of an apple. I was my grandmother’s apron with its stain
in the shape of an egg, my grandfather’s clean handkerchief stamped
into a perfect square under the weight of an iron. I was the black net
purse in my grandmother’s hand inside the silk of her glove, the space
inside of her hand as she took my grandfather’s hand the first time
he asked her to dance. Waiting for spring, I slept furled in the magnolia
blossom. All night I tapped at the kitchen window, waiting for my pink
hood to drop. I was the eye in the bowl of the rain barrel, blinking with each
drop of rain, washed to earth in a downpour, expected to nourish everything.
Return to Volume 2.4
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