Lola, Salmon, Juneau by Michelle Elvy

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This photo was taken in June 2006 in Juneau, Alaska. It rained constantly while we were there but there was something about the life and the light that captivated us. We traveled through Southeast Alaska that whole season and sailed passed icebergs, glaciers, and whales. We collected thousands of photos and memories. But somehow it was a portion of this unassuming picture of my then four-year-old looking out the window of the Juneau Public Library which became the banner for 52|250. I like it here on this last page of 52|250; there’s something about the young child looking out, the brightly colored fish between her and the murky wet cityscape. Maybe it’s this: maybe it says goodbye in the right way. And onward! — Michelle Elvy

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Juggler by Michelle Elvy

I used to be a juggler. Got pretty good, too. Started out small, used three beanies my flatmate Stefan gave me. Stefan was a lively juggler, could use anything at hand. I once watched him take a salt shaker, a wine glass, and a roll of toilet paper and toss them in the air. I held my breath, expected them to come crashing down on the floor, but he kept them suspended for five minutes. All while belting out Nina Hagen. So I started juggling with Stefan every Sunday in the Stadtpark. I was terrible at first. Man, you gotta breathe, he’d laugh. Sure enough, breathing helped. I could even ride a unicycle. We started busking and we breathed and balanced our way all over Germany. Made some money, got another partner in our act. Beate was gorgeous and could swallow swords. But she left us eventually for a poet named Peter in Paris, and after that the chemistry was gone. Stefan went back to Hamburg, I flew home to Pennsylvania. Found myself in a cubicle wearing polyester shirts and simultaneously drinking whisky from a flask I kept hidden in my bottom drawer while suffocating. Now I’m back in Hamburg, wondering what happened to Stefan after all this time. I go to the Stadtpark on Sundays and juggle. I’m not so good any more but there’s a girl with red shoes who keeps her distance but always watches. I’m going to talk to her one of these days.

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The Gift by Michelle Elvy

Jane bought Jerry a new phone for his birthday because he didn’t want to share any more. They had shared everything in their life together, and she really didn’t need her own phone, but when he said sharing had turned to controlling, she thought she’d try something new, let go a little. Now Jerry texts and telephones all day while Jane wonders when he’ll start talking to her again.

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Ol’ Ornery’s Home by Michelle Elvy

Twila was an ornery thing. No one liked her though she’d lived in our neighborhood forever. They said she was crazy, possessed even. We believed it — her wild orange hair and wandering eye were enough to make us know it was true. We played a game to see who could look her way the longest: if her eye wandered your way and caught you, you had to pay up with your week’s ice cream money. Jimmy and Terry collected a lot of my ice cream money back then. One day I skinned my knee, slipped off a stone at the creek. I was hurrying past Twila’s house, my eyes stinging from salty tears and afternoon sun and the dirt I’d rubbed into them with my muddy hands. I hobbled past quickly but just as I was near the corner, almost safe, she called me back. It was the first time she’d ever spoken to me. No use pretending I didn’t hear either. “Boy, where you goin’ with that knee?” “Ummm…” “Come on inside,” she said, raising an eyebrow over her Evil Eye which in that moment did not seem so evil. So I wandered up her porch steps and went inside, where she bandaged my knee in her mothball house without saying a word. Then she sat me at the table and cut watermelon into small triangles and didn’t scold me when the juice dripped down my arms to elbows and pooled on her polished wooden table.

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Nothing Happens at Sea by Michelle Elvy

“Nothing happens at sea,” he had told her, and for the most part he was right. Mile after mile is the same: the blue sea-sky-scape he’d always known, the slow undulation of ocean swell, the maddening froth and staccato rhythm of storms, the constant hum of wind over canvas. An occasional pod of dolphins, an occasional albatross. An occasional moment of terror with an unfamiliar noise. An occasional evening symphony in the cockpit – sometimes Brahms, sometimes Zappa. On this passage, there’s Christmas pudding, too. Every day, because she gave it to him as a parting gift. She is in the pudding. She is everywhere. He had laughed when she gave him the pudding, 40 tins in all — one for every estimated day in the Southern Ocean — for the rich bricks will last much longer than his passage from Auckland to Punta Arenas. “So you won’t forget me,” she had said, patting the boxes gently. “I will not forget you,” he’d said. “But will you come back?” He had not answered, for as sure as she is from there, he is from nowhere. But he feels the answer pounding in his chest, and he thinks it was wrong to say nothing happens at sea. Because he sails east but looks over his shoulder with every sunset and feels his heart change. He feels her hot whisper in the cold wind, and he’s not so sure he’s a nowhere man any more.

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Sunken Treasure by Michelle Elvy

When Jackie and Jim first rolled round in the sack, they were teens, mere beginners. All limbs and movement, no tact or grace. It didn’t matter, of course: enthusiasm and energy made up for lack of finesse. One night Jackie lay next to Jim, sweaty and heaving but confused. “There’s got to be more to orgasm than this.” Jim left the room quickly, returned with his mask and snorkel. “What the hell are you doing?” she said as he climbed up the foot of the bed with his snorkel gear dangling. “Free diving,” he grinned, snapping the strap on his head, “Going in deep, looking for treasure.” He found it alright, but it took a little roadmapping and a lot of giggling along the way. They spent years mapping each other’s bodies, diving and snorkeling and learning how to breathe deep. Ten years later, Jackie’s holding her breath. Jim’s gone and Ralph’s down there looking for treasure. She’s not sure he’s ever gonna find it at the rate he’s going. She considers asking him if he needs a GPS, bursts out laughing. Then the tears come and Ralph’s out the door. It occurs to Jackie then and there that the years with Jim were good ones, even if in the end she needed less finesse and more constancy, more companionship. At some point it turned sour and the fights were as frequent as the orgasms. But it was real, and she misses real.

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The laugh which was always there by Michelle Elvy

When Henry Watson’s 1980 Buick LeSabre skidded off the road, he expected to see his life pass before his eyes. They say that happens, the whole birth-to-this-minute flash. Instead, he saw only parts of it, some parts he’d never seen before, like when his daughter found him masturbating in the closet — he’d felt mortified, almost zipped himself. What he saw now, in the moment the LeSabre careened round the corner and dived into the muddy ditch, was not the look of disgust he’d assumed (which had covered his face) but something else entirely – amusement or possibly even understanding. The masturbating turned into blending malts in the kitchen with the lid left off: there was his wife in the corner, long before cancer ravaged her perfect body, her mighty laugh exploding at the eggs on the ceiling and the malt powder on his checkered shirt, her soft hand caressing his unshaven face. There were other moments, too: a sudden and violent slap across the face of his three-year-old son which he’d regretted for thirty years, a blinding sunrise in Athens, a scowling man outside the shop where he purchased his coffee every morning for thirteen years, the whitetail of a buck gamboling away yesterday as he lowered his Browning and didn’t fire, a waterfall somewhere in upstate New York – roaring like his wife’s mighty laugh which was here again, too. The laugh which was always there, even as he lost sight of everything and the world went black.

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The Other Side of Better by Michelle Elvy

Running up a hill tripping upwards falling downwards making deals with the devil or God — whichever works better Radio’s on Bush is burning I turn it up and feel me yearning for your devil grin and thunder heart or God — whichever is better As I listen and wait I soon find myself in a song                it’s you and me… in tune                It’s you and me who won’t be unhappy… in love and singing — this is better

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No Plan by Michelle Elvy

“I thought you don’t smoke,” he said, taking in her sunbleached hair, the scar through her left eyebrow, her slightly crooked nose. Surprised at the rush of feeling he felt as he formed her name in his mouth: Mo. They were sitting on the dock, halyards clanking in the distance on a soft evening breeze. “I don’t,” she replied as she exhaled long and cool. “But I like the pretty pink ashtray. Where’d you get it?” “Don’t recall,” he lied. “Some beach in Mexico.” Fact was, he knew precisely where he got it. It had been the last day of his Mazatlan honeymoon, the one he had planned for months because that’s the sort of fellow he was. The flights, the tours, the resort, the scooters. Everything had gone according to plan, too, from dining to surfing to spelunking in places whose names they could not pronounce. Then, on the last day, the plan fell apart when she said “I can’t” one week after her “I do”. No explanation, either, just a lonely flight back with a suitcase full of shells collected for a future that did not exist. Mo stubbed out her unfinished Camel, said quizzically, “So? what’s the plan?” And then, he was suddenly on his feet, hurtling the shell out to sea and shouting, “I got no plan!” And the ashes were still floating away on the breeze when Mo stood up beside him, took his hand in hers and whispered, “That’s alright.”

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Priorities by Michelle Elvy

for Rob Rich and Sarah got married. Everyone came. The prying aunt from Philly, the slobbery uncle from Sicily. The cousin with weepy eyes, the cousin-twice-removed who smells like mothballs. The guest-list decision came one night over bubble bath and champagne. “If we invite Aunt Jane, we have to invite Phyllis,” said Sarah, scratching in her notebook and splashing in the bubbles. “And if we invite Phyllis, we can’t leave out Bea.” “And with Bea always comes her stupid dog,” said Rich, as he stepped in to join her. “What’s his name?” “Freddie.” “Yeah: Fucking Freddie. Pass the rubber duckie.” “Rich! Focus! We either open up the list to the whole crazy family or…” “Yeah, I know, but right now the loofah’s calling. I feel dirty — and I got my priorities.” The guest list fell to the floor as Sarah scooted down deep and felt a slippery tongue between her toes. In the end, everyone was invited, and all their friends and family attended, 532 in all. It was a much larger affair than they had envisioned. People drank and danced long into the night, peering into webcams and sending out good cheer from seventeen points across the globe. From 200 in Boston to 80 in Berlin to just Frida and Jorg and a well-behaved parrot in Cyprus, everyone participated with glee. It was the first internet wedding in both families. It was also the first New Zealand bathtub wedding. It was also probably the first wedding with toe-sucking between I-do‘s.

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Three of Four by Michelle Elvy

When Great-Grandpa Harold told me that eating the whole apple to the core and even past it, seeds and all, would make me live forever, I believed him. He was living proof, after all. He died at 101 when I was 10 — the closest thing to forever that I could imagine. Harold told me four basic truths back then. The other three were: chocolate is great but sex is better; your girl is always the prettiest; Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain will change your life. My sister and I grew up eating our apples all the way down, seeds and all. She even ate the stems, thought Great-Grandpa Harold would think that especially good. She died last year at age 38. I’m still getting over it, and I admit that I’ve been bitter. But lately my girl and I sit on the porch at night, listening to Miles Davis, and I think that Harold was right about most everything. I still eat my apples past the core, seeds and all, ‘cause I don’t like to think of Harold as a liar. And besides, three out of four ain’t bad.

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Secret by Michelle Elvy

You saw me and I saw you and we smiled but we said nothing because we weren’t supposed to see anything at all I loved you and you loved me and we fucked but we said nothing because we weren’t supposed to be anything at all Now I see you and you don’t see me and I still want you but I say nothing because it’s not supposed to mean anything at all

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Words Matter by Michelle Elvy

She looked at the board in front of her, the words criss-crossing in impossibly neat rows, the red triple-word square waiting for the letters which would win the game. It had come down to this, the score so close that the last play would win. She measured her breath carefully as she turned over her newly selected letter. The smooth surface in her palm, the winning combination. But at what price? she wondered.  Her hands shook as she organized the letters in front of her, concealed from him behind their letter-wall.  She placed the r in its place, just right: r-u-i-n. Her lip trembled and months’ worth of anger flooded in — violent, desperate words and a recently thrown shoe which had left a dent in the door. Your turn, she said, and she was glad for the wait. He glanced up, a serious piercing look, and she wondered if he too felt like the last word mattered this much. It’s just a game, she told herself. But still: those four letters winked wickedly from their little shelf, and she knew their truth. Everything ruined. k: his first letter down, red triple. Then came the rest in rapid succession. That’s not a word, she blurted as she leaned in to examine his rule-breaking contribution. I don’t care. And the letters went flying as he reached across the table and pulled her to meet him half-way, his k-i-s-s-m-e ending the game between them, her r-u-i-n falling right off its perch.

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The Weight of Water by Michelle Elvy

Pop had the idea when I was around seven to sell bottled water. Everyone laughed at him, said he was nuts. Which was true, mostly. He usually had one idea on the go, another in his back pocket. We were always up-and-coming. He started a swimming pool company once: we’d make it rich that way. We even built one in our backyard one summer, must have been ‘74 or ‘75. There are pictures of my oldest brother surveying the backyard, barely tall enough to peek through the lenses balanced on the orange tripod, and my other brother and me in the hopper, troweling aggregate smooth. Blonde kids up to their elbows in grey. When the water trucks came, we had not yet put the braces in behind the walls so they began to push out with the weight of the water. The bolts groaned as the sides nearly pulled apart. I didn’t know something so liquidy smooth could be so heavy. “Quick, grab what you can!” We hurriedly created our own landfill behind the walls, collected everything from our garage that we could find that was destined for the dump: old strollers, tents, games, trikes. So many items got buried that day. I still wish some hadn’t. He’s long gone, Pop, and we moved away. But I loved that pool, skinny-dipped my way through my teen years with my best friend Beth. Pop never did launch his water company. I reckon he should have.

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Block Party by Michelle Elvy

Voices call me out of sleep groggy, curious, I creep toward the kitchen, where the drinks are mixin’
This ain’t my scene, but I think I’ll stay, like this song, won’t you come out to play…
You, Cheshire-grin, know-it-all: d’you like the party so far? and you, boy in the spelling bee: how’d’you get from A to Z? butcher, baker, candlestickmaker: you don’t belong here, take your childish rhymes off my page! (sigh)
This is better: I spy shitgreen Staasi-shirts marching by but wait, what’s that? why are they drinking with Wolf and Biermann,– what’re they thinking? that ain’t right: they’re not fighting the fight but everything’s topsy turvy: Hagen’s singing cabaret, Liza’s communing with Krishna and Johnny’s rotting in the corner with scurvy Tamara sings Bye-bye my love and we dance real slow, build walls, turn west
This Wall’s my Wall — gotta mount it go under over maybe around it build it, climb it, Christo-bind it find a way to nevermind it
My catch-22: I want to keep you, but I’ve got to show some the door there’s a major cast, a major twist, with a major ending, a major fist fight in the toilet
But I can’t sustain this frantic pace, I’ve got to trim, cut, paste, shut some of you up lest you go and spoil it

	(And who let in that orangutan? he jumped stories, he ain’t part of this plan!)
Gotta sleep, pull up the cover, Let me know when the party’s over
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sea song by Michelle Elvy

you’ll be gone forever and a day
	naw. just three oceans. once around the world
you’ll meet mermaids and sirens
	yes. but my journey ends here, with you
you’ll forget
	i’ll see you in the sea
how do you know?
	because your eyes are in the sun your hips on every wave your breath the wind
will you remember this?
	this i’ll remember most of all the space between your belly button and rib the distance from your shoulder to wrist the miles from knee down to toe
ok then
	now shhhhh let me dive into your southern ocean

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Two Cups of Tea by Michelle Elvy and Lola Elvy

Ruby loved dragons so much she talked to them during the day, dreamed of them at night, and learned to ride them like the wind. Hers was a world of scales and sky, feathers and fire. People said Ruby got her imagination from her mother Agatha, but Agatha knew better, for she was a novelist who had written nothing in a decade. Hers was a world divided: then, now; fiction, reality. Where characters once danced in her heart, a dark space and blank page burdened her mind. One day Ruby told Agatha about the dragons. “They roam the woods,” she said to a raised eyebrow and a whistling kettle. “They wait for me in the trees.” Two cups. “My favorite is the amphithere – he’s iridescent blue with a golden-tipped tail.” Cream and sugar. “He flies and breathes fire, but his most powerful weapon is his tail.” Biscuits, too. “They say he can strike you dead with one look, but that is not true. I’ve seen his eyes. They don’t carry death.” Agatha lingered on the warm tea and the sunshine in her daughter’s face. Wished she could remember what it felt like to feel so alive with ideas. She sighed as Ruby drained her teacup and flew out the door. When she glanced out the window, her eye caught something shimmer at the edge of the wood. Golden leaves? Blue branches? She watched Ruby enter the forest, hand held high in a friendly greeting. And Agatha’s heart danced.

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Plunge by Michelle Elvy

 

David Charles Terrence Saunders, DDS, stared into his blurry whisky glass and wondered just how he was going to get home. It had been Brad’s idea to come to The Mermaid Bar, though Dave had thought his strip bar days had ended when he’d asked Sally to marry him and she’d said yes. But that was before Sally flew off with a flight attendant — a flight attendant, for chrissakes! – before Brad had convinced him that flyfishing and titties would cheer him up. Dave could not help but be drawn in by the beauty of the gliding mermaid before him – the redhead who’d been swishing her tail at him all night long. He was mesmerized by all that wet — the waving green plastic kelp, the twinkling pink pebbles, the gold sparkles dancing on the wavelets. And the smooth dreamlike creatures in the enormous center-stage aquarium. He lost himself between his shallow whisky glass and the deep tank and spent most of the evening a world away from Sally, whose memory was quickly becoming dull and dry. As he drank in everything, he entered new levels of despair and joy. He could not be sure what attracted him more, the golden water or the girl, but he soon found himself sinking at an alarming rate to the bottom of the tank floor and gasping large mouthfuls of water, grey images of Sally swimming in his head as he looked to the redheaded mermaid to come to his rescue.

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Big World by Michelle Elvy

 

Partied with Walt under his backyard breadfruit tree John cut del, cadaver labia met mopey Leonard smelling of dollar store shampoo glycerine temporality, delicate and plastic a fictitious Mount Richard caramel puddings sticky with salt >caramel pbalanced on a blue-balled piñata-man Over there, cop saves guy he thinks a thief by the water, two naked girls ready for anything a woman rushes in, her dim date living in smoky oblivion Another sees gray, holding a box of watercolors while a man moos melodious to his clapping daughter Cinnamon girl’s smirking at stinky kid lurking near a guy with a plate of chorizo Merkelmutter’s not sleeping and an EMT holds a hooker’s hand sweetly Telephone rings — Lady Gaga – business bitches here, too Someone recalls the Fenway fondly his cracked head like earthquakes in EnZed Joe’s freezing on the ledge and a boy punches kid Cody Then: we all peer into an octopus’s garden Rabbitfoot falls off a cliff Boa wraps round a supple neck Manx-Cat-tats flex while man on street awaits woman in Benz whose bad haircut perches perfectly atop her small head Now: music, language, Gilgamesh, Odysseus Postcard-memories Bahamian seashells Postcard — poetry in a grain of sand — but not for the girl who marries a man whose wilderness is deeper than her own Meropi’s on time her goat’s bell’s chiming and now I’m climbing above clouds of the Tararuas or descending into oblivion connecting with the void snow on a hot cheek then snow on– KAPOW! – I float away to today

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Stay by Michelle Elvy

I keep you here behind the wild green of my eyes in the sticky black of my lashes under the chewed pink of my nails in the dry back of my throat behind the bitter red of my tongue And sometimes when your RRRRRRtastesmellfeel lingers in my world I think you are real and then I wish I could unsift you through my fingers back to when you were more than RRRRRRashbonedust — back before you floated away on the full moon’s tide

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Beveridge Reef, 20º00S 167º47’W by Michelle Elvy

Beveridge Reef, 20º00S 167º47’W by Michelle Elvy

52|250 thanks Michelle Elvy for the art this week.

 

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New Year by Michelle Elvy

Helen slept in dreams of gold. Everything exploding, which was not frightening at all. The explosions were beautiful, wondrous, and left her feeling calm and light. House-job-commute: kapow! Broke-down car: kapow! Snotty sister: kapow! Cheating husband: kapow! She lined up those things and said (or did not say because it was a dream after all): Off with your head! And their heads fell right off. Just like that. It happened with the flick of a wand (she had a wand, somewhere, and she might have even yelled Expelliarmus!)… or maybe just a withering glance (yep, that worked too).  Simultaneously all those things exploded, evaporated, dissipated into thin air. Even the yappy dog from next door — one raised eyebrow did him in.  A year’s worth of jammed up stuff was simply gone and the air was clean and she could breathe — in her dream. Helen awoke with a flash of giddy golden light all around her as the dream lingered. Then she glanced up to the water-stained ceiling, heard the whir of the fan, felt the dull grey sheets hanging heavy on her body. She glanced at the grey lump in the bed beside her, snoring in oblivious peace after the late-night celebration, his breath the usual mixture of alcohol and cigarettes. She leaned in close, said: Kapow.  And whispered to herself: Happy new year.

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Bird by Michelle Elvy

(for Kirk) It is quieter than quiet. A seabird lands on deck, squawks his lonely squawk. It’s his hello but the woman shoos him, tells him to go. She wants to be alone with the toenail moon and the shadows all around, with the familiar line surrounding her, where dark night touches down on black ocean. The wind is light. The sails sigh and sometimes thwonk. But mostly she is lulled by the sound of nothing, the heave and hush of swell on hull. Ahead lies the longest line, the measure of her existence. It’s invisible but real, parting the world in two. North and South: will they feel as different as before and after, then and now, life and loss? Will the South Sea soothe her Chesapeake soul? Will Acrux tug like Polaris used to pull? Will ghosts come to her now, whisper stories from shared history? Will they feed her future, warm her salt skin, will her on? I hear you, brother. I remember when you strummed harmony with your hands. I see your forever grin. The bird returns. She asks him where he’s from but he flies away and fades to shadow. And she sails on, west by southwest, the taste of tomorrow on her tongue.

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Charlie’s Travels by Michelle Elvy



Charlie Hancock missed the bus. Started walking.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Charlie Hancock boarded the bus, sat in a seat in the back, the  same seat he always chose.

He didn’t stop anywhere or talk to anyone, just kept walking.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

He looked around at the familiar faces, the ones he saw every evening on the Number 9, felt a pang of guilt — but only a small pang.

Out past the town line, to where Main Street turned to gravel and then dirt.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

He remained calm as the bus came to a stop at the corner of Pine. He slid down low in his seat and waited for the next passenger.

He came to a field, sat under the shade of a large oak and began to cry.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Sweat beaded his brow as he watched the man board the bus — this man whom he’d planned to follow home and shoot for all the right reasons.

He pulled out the gun, tossed it far as he could, forsaking revenge.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

But on this night the man was carrying a bundle which cooed and smiled while he paid the driver.

Then Charlie wiped his brow, stood up and walked toward the grassy spot where the gun had fallen. There’s always tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow I might not miss the bus.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

And Charlie, losing all resolve for all the right reasons, decided then and there against revenge.

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Urban longing by Michelle Elvy

‘Come on down,’ she said and he did. Hopped right on a plane after a two-month romance which began online. The electricity pulled him right round the globe, from the safety of the frozen north to the uncharted waters of the South Pacific. It was good, too. They surfed on virgin beaches by day and watched phosphorescent dolphins by night. He was lulled to sleep by the sound of midnight waves and her deep sea voice. She was soothed by his big man laugh and laughed at his big city stories, the ones with Lenny, Scanio, and Bruce. But soon the red curry sun and coconut cream love wasn’t enough. He found himself longing for home. ‘You could come with me,’ he said, ‘skate down my favorite hill with a view of Manhattan, see the world from the Staten Island ferry, eat lemon ices.’ She puckered her lips, thought — how could you not love a place called Bliss Park? ‘Yes, I think I could,’ she whispered. He told more of his street where polka and soul sang on the same summer breeze, where a foghorn came through his early morning window — the same foghorn Walt Whitman heard when he was writing. He described all that he longed to share with her. She wrapped her blue shawl tight around her shoulders, leaned into him. She loved these stories of Whitman and polkas and Italian ice. But they belonged to this Brooklyn boy, and she belonged here.

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Dandelion by Michelle Elvy

Here, you say, take it even as the wind whirls it away I clench my fingers closed roll the dandelion in and hold you here forever Mama, you say I open my fingers roll them out aaaaaaaaatoward you and we watch the dandelion whisper away you place your hand in mine your monkey grin your lion mane flying in the wind A fistful of love here in my hand enough for a lifetime here in the palm of my hand

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This Week’s To Do List by Michelle Elvy

(or: Twelve things I’m gonna do before I’m thirty, not necessarily in this order, but probably all in one week, since I turn thirty next Thursday) 1. Go to Stef’s Subshop and order a foot-long kielbasa with kraut and mustard and extra peperoncinis. 2. Buy a decent amp and a guitar — preferably a Stratocaster like I used to have, but let’s face it, any ol’ guitar will do. 3. Swim far out into the Atlantic, then float there til dark – like we did when we were kids. 4. Start new job. 5. Dig my LP’s out of Cyril’s basement; dust off Hank Williams and Dave Alvin, Tom Waits and Lou Reed. 6. Rent all of The Godfather movies and watch them in one go. 7. Get a library card. 8. Visit my mother. 9. Kick my kid brother Frank’s ass. 10. Get out of jail. 11. Send this postcard to Penny that says: Meet me at Harris Point for my birthday. 12. Drive to Harris Point and wait.

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Tell me what you think by Michelle Elvy

“Dites moi ce que vous en pensez,” said the old woman. “Tell me what you think.” The girl had been gazing at the canvas, an astonishing explosion of color amidst a grey background of tattered cardboard and greasy clothing and tired plastic bags, and she now sensed the woman’s gaze on her. What could she say? That she wanted to press her cheek into the cool ocean purples, put her lips to the milky sky and drink? That the sweep of greens and browns rising up with the sun’s golden fingers parting the trees just so hinted at the home she’d left and nearly forgotten? That the feathery texture of the grasses down low reminded her of the brush of her lover’s hand on her neck, that she was sure that the depression in those tall wildflowers was made by him and her, right there. And that the line of black birds off in the distance placed a thin, cold emptiness in her chest which had nothing to do with the November Parisian morning? For a moment, she wondered if she could take this woman around the corner and buy her a hot tea, sit with her and talk about the color of warmth and love and home, of sorrow and loneliness and fear. She wanted to know how an old woman could capture everything that was in a girl’s heart in such a small square. Instead, she tossed a coin into the woman’s worn grey cap and muttered: “Oui, c’est bon.”

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I was never good with people but I had a friend, once by Michelle Elvy

This is a story about a skinny girl named Penny. We climbed the monkey bars after school because my dad was usually late to pick me up and her parents arrived even later than my dad. So even if we didn’t exactly intend to be friends, we were — after school, at least, since during school she was the kind who didn’t dodge the red ball, and I was the kind who threw it hard because I could. I reckon I wasn’t the nicest kid, but Penny saw past such flaws and became my friend anyway. I didn’t realize we were friends until one week she didn’t turn up at school and I didn’t talk to or play with anyone or even try hard in gym class. So when she showed up again on the following Monday, I asked her name and we became friends – probably even BFF’s except I didn’t know such cuteness and I had a keen sense that forever was bullshit. When we had an outbreak of lice at school Penny took me to her house and we shaved our heads with an electric razor. My teacher called my dad for a conference but he wasn’t a conference kind of guy so he never showed. We kept our hair short all through that spring. But by the following September, Penny had moved away and my hair had grown out. Everything was the same again — except I stopped throwing dodgeballs at skinny girls.

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The Chair by Michelle Elvy

“It’s time to move the chair,” said Grandma matter-of-factly. I knew what she meant: time to put the old green easy-chair on the curb, the one with the saggy seat and fraying arms, the one which smelled of oil and sweat and Old Spice and also old age and even faintly of forbidden cigarette smoke. I knew it was time to take it away but dreaded it. That chair had been Grandpa’s favorite. I came home from school every day and found him sitting in his chair. After short happy days at primary school, I would climb into his lap and read him books about farm animals. In later years, I scratched my homework notes sitting cross-legged at the coffee table while he concentrated on crosswords. “Maisy, what’s the world’s tallest building?” he might ask. The Chair was as constant in my life as Grandpa. Prom dates were cross-examined, college friends were greeted from The Chair, occasionally asked, “seven-letter word for hairy?” Once I was lectured about smoking from The Chair, but I knew Grandpa occasionally snuck outside to grab a Pall Mall – I’d discovered his pack hidden in the coffee table drawer way back during my algebra years. In the end, the hospital trips were dreadful, the funeral was bitter. But removing the green chair was my least favorite task. I rescued Grandpa’s last pack of Pall Malls from the coffee table drawer, half-carried and half-pushed the chair across the lawn, and chain-smoked his cigarettes ’til dark.

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Two Trees by Michelle Elvy

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–-They don’t have tombstones. -Why not? -Because we didn’t bury them. -Why not? -Because they returned to sky and water and earth, in that order. I watch my mother and my daughter, each wondering in her own quiet way about where this story will go next. They are rolling Sunday morning biscuits. My daughter is perched on the counter where I sat a thousand times. She’s been humming and rolling and swinging her legs, just as I did, but now she’s grown still, thinking about the uncles she never knew. I see my mother swallow hard and I know she’s pondering what to say. My daughter looks quizzically at my mother, wrinkles her floury nose. Mom inhales, says Come, and they head out the kitchen door. I don’t follow. I know they will go to the garden, where my mother will kneel down and tell a story of one boy who loved the sky and the other who loved the sea and how their ashes were swallowed by both. She will not speak of heaven or God or a pink-marshmallow place where her boys wait for her. She will not sugarcoat the story of their deaths. I peek out the window and see them huddled together, my mother and my daughter, dwarfed by the two magnolia trees which were planted the year my brothers died. It is March, our saddest month. The trees hang heavy with large buds, ready to open in glorious fragrant bloom.

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Constellations by Michelle Elvy

You call up and say you’re sorry and I know you are ’cause I am too but I’ve rehearsed this in my head a hundred times, how I’ll tell you that it won’t work, that our tempers are too alike, that two Leos can’t co-habitate, that you breaking my grandma’s china was the last straw — but I don’t even convince myself because your voice makes all that space between us contract suddenly and cold turns to warm and I am back in the first night we stayed up til dawn when you pointed out the constellations you knew (only two) and then some you made up and then you named the freckles across my shoulders after the stars and told me that from then on whenever you see Cassiopeia or Orion or Lorna Doon in the night sky you also see the sharp line of my right shoulder blade and I’m thinking of that and not at all about my grandma’s broken china when the doorbell rings and there you are, standing in front of me with those sun-streaked lines around your eyes, asking me to take in the stars with you tonight, as if it’s as simple as going to a movie, and I drop the phone and say yes, because it is that simple, and there’s something in your smile that makes the material things not matter nearly so much as the stars in heaven.

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You Say Arugula, I Say Lettuce by Michelle Elvy

I was surprised when Carrie called. We hadn’t seen each other in years. We’d been high-school friends, sure — the kind you don’t expect to see again after you’ve been  pomp-and-circumstanced down the school stadium steps and the last D-Major chord has drifted out on the breeze. But I’d just had my first baby and she’d had her second, so she called for a mommy’s lunch. At the upscale yuppy café (“my fave,” she gushed), I ordered a baked stuffed potato (the closest thing to real food on offer) while she drank protein-vitamin-water and pushed sprigs of delicately arranged arugula around her plate. We caught up: the husband/house/job/childbirth list. She swooned about her offspring, who were home with the au pair, while mine nursed noisily in my lap. I sought peace in my potato while she carried on about her dullard husband and her sterile McMansion. And her stupid onroad/offroad jogging stroller – the Landrover of strollers. “I prefer my 1970 Buick LeSabre model,” I offered, “which has seen my sisters through five kids. It’s named Blue Betty.” Carrie grimaced. My wee angel farted marvelously. When she said she could not stay for dessert, I masked my elation as she air-kissed my cheeks goodbye. She sashayed out of the café just as my chocolate mint parfait arrived. I watched her go, musing on the contrast between her perfectly heart-shaped jogger’s ass and the green sprigs of lettuce stuck between her porcelain white teeth.

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Close your eyes by Michelle Elvy

Close your eyes and you can see it all, she said. She took my hand in hers: warm, dry, sure. She led my fingers up her arm, around her elbow. My body’s a landscape, she said. Landscape indeed. She laid out a map of her life that night. That vein there: a long road down the back of her sun-freckled knee, slightly bumpy since the birth of her child. My fingers skipped up one smooth arm as she told of an easy childhood and laughed at the memories of tree-forts and tea-parties and the time she flew at seven, all alone, to visit her grandma in Tennessee. I navigated a gravel road up the other arm: teen years, cruel and rough, hard to describe but easy to imagine. A scar through the right eyebrow: daddy’s mark. Butterfly kisses on my palm from long lashes she got from her gentle mum. Further down the road, valleys gave way to mountains, and mountains proved worth climbing. I nestled into the pond scent of her belly, mossy and cool. Close your eyes and you can see it all, she said. And I did.

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Getting to Know You: A Six Course Meal by Michelle Elvy

1. Salad Oh no: onions. I despise raw onions. I wonder why she’s not eating her salad. 2. Soup The soup’s a little salty — but I like salty. He looks salty, too. Delicious. I wonder if she appreciates the secret to leek soup. Maybe she doesn’t care; maybe she doesn’t eat greens — she hardly touched her salad. Oh, but she’s slurping now — and dripping down her chin. I think she likes the soup. 3. Entrée Grilled veggies, mmmmm perfect. Everything’s a little too perfect. Maybe he lives with his mother and he’s stuffed her in a closet. Damn! look at her eat. I love a woman who dives into her food — none of that push-it-around-on-your-plate-I’m-not-hungry-bullshit. And she just downed her second stout. She could be the one…. 4. Main Course How does he know how to make molé? Just the right bite. A man who understands poblanos and chocolate is a man for me. I’m ready to forgive him beginning our date with onions. She digs the mole. I like a woman who appreciates the right amount of bite. 5. Dessert Christ, this pecan pie rivals my gran’s. Fuck this talk about my thirty kindergarteners and his thirty employees, I’m gonna ask him what’s for breakfast. I wonder if she likes strawberries dipped in chocolate eaten off that dip in her belly button which I imagine to be near-perfect?

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A Good Day by Michelle Elvy

The last time Emily wore her hair down was fifteen years back. But this was a celebration. Hairpins lay scattered on her dressing table, the tight dark twist finally released. She went downstairs. “You look good,” said a friend, tucking a tendril behind Emily’s ear. And why not? Paul lay six feet under ground. Finally.

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Escalation by Michelle Elvy

1: You…
2: …and me.
3: You want to…?
4: Cool night, hot hope.
5: Pour me another, keep talking.
6: 4am. Still here. Electric fingertips touch.
7: Your voice makes music between the sheets.
8: Dawn dapples your shoulder; I kiss the light.
9: I’ll show you yours if you show me mine.
10: Don’t fall to sleep. Tell me another story. 1001? Yes.

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Ordinary Boys by Michelle Elvy

Jersey (not Jozefow), 2010 (not 1942)

When asked why he did it, the boy averts his eyes, fidgets. He does not lie, but he cannot face the truth. His lip trembles and he shakes when shown the photos. When asked to describe his role, he employs the passive voice and talks about others: I was told… They insisted…When pressed for an explanation, he refers to a chain of command: I did what they said. He talks about the older boys, the way he wanted to belong, the way he went along.  When asked if he pulled the trigger, he nods and shrugs. And when forced to talk about what really happened in the woods, he cries at the memory — the shallow grave, the waste of life. He did not want to shoot the dog, you can tell. There is no hate in his eyes, no fanatical glint. He is not accustomed to such cruelty.

He is an ordinary boy.

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Morning Flash by Michelle Elvy

There’s a hush in the air. Frost glows and mist whispers. A silver sheen covers the cool earth: a hovering blanket on a slumbering world. I stand in a peaceful meadow – before me stretches an Asian painting on canvas, a China doll landscape, delicate and glassy, almost without color. It looks as if it might shatter if I move. That is how still it is.

Still…

If I open my eyes, I see a tiny snowdrop waving hello through the dew, a hint of green winking from the branch of that tall tree. If I tune my ears, I hear the chickadee’s phoebe and the titmouse’s peter peter greeting the longer days and the light spreading across the world. If inhale deeply, I smell dew and sweat and life itself, as a newborn calf shivers in the barn. I know that even on such a still morning, Nature is busy. Soon this meadow will crescendo in color and erupt in a thunder of delightful spring noise. And I will let loose and run.

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Time to Rest by Michelle Elvy

One grey day the earth decided to sleep. The mighty mountains shrugged their rounded shoulders and sighed a great necessary sigh. The wide seas sucked their liquid breath in and out in deep soothing swells. The earth turned inward. Oil stopped flowing. The flat plains coughed a dry cough and the mantis-like machines creaked to a halt.  The ocean floor sneezed a satisfying sneeze and swallowed the drilling platforms whole. People who lived on the planet scurried around noisily looking for shelter, and those who could took flight to new frontiers. Some – the quiet ones – stayed behind, and made peace with the sleeping mother.

Soon, all activity ceased and the only thing audible was the sound of sleep in a world that emerged ecstatic with fragrance and color. Tiare and jasmine shouted happy stories across continents, magnolias made mad love as their roots stretched deep into the wet fertile soil, while sequoia and kauri reached with their arms toward heaven.

And the mighty mountains sighed, and the wide seas heaved.

And the earth dreamed blue-green dreams.

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Fill ’er up by Michelle Elvy

On my way to work this morning, I saw two cows fucking – OK, I guess it was a cow and a bull. They were right on the side of the road, no kidding. Not down in the pasture, or up the hill, but on the gravel shoulder, right there, so close that I had to slow my car to pass. And when I did, the one closest to me – the one on the bottom, the cow – looked right at me. Big bored browns, long lazy lashes. Like they know a lot but ain’t ever gonna tell. Made me think of that girl Peach – her eyes are like that. I’ve never actually talked to her, but I see her standing on the corner by the gas station. Skinny legs, rounded shoulders, bangs down to those eyes. I don’t actually think about fucking her. Well, maybe I do. But really, when I see her, I remember things I’ve nearly forgotten.

Sometimes I fill my Chevy just to have a look, and sometimes she looks back. In that moment I forget my wife who don’t look at me, kids who don’t hear me, supervisors who don’t listen. In those moments, I forget that I usually don’t look forward to much at all.

Sometimes I can’t wait to fill my Chevy.

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Between by Michelle Elvy

Dear Story;

Where are you? I’ve been looking for nearly five days now. I know you are here somewhere. Perhaps you are under the chair, with the sticky Cheerios and breakfast crumbs. Or maybe you are outside, breathing in fresh morning dew or perching on the laundry line between those two red socks, or squeezing creekmud between your toes as you huddle with the mallards. You could be in the soup I made yesterday, bubbling in the broth with the carrots and peas. Or you could be resting on my downy pillow, nestled in the warm soft white where I lay my head.

I glimpsed you last night in the sideways glance of my lover, I heard you this morning in my child’s singsong voice.

You are a space-walker and a time-traveler for, even as you jump across continents and oceans, and though you live very much in the present, you sometimes come to me from an obscured place in the past, and you often feel like the future, full of promise.

I will wait patiently, will not rush you. You’ll come at your own pace — when you are ready, when I am ready. With a whisper or a shout, a tickle or a punch. One way or another, we will find each other.

Ah!  This week you are here, camped out

in                              the                            spaces                                  between.

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Crush by Michelle Elvy

When the new girl Mary showed up in geography class, Ted felt his throat go dry. When she sat in the wooden chair next to him, cold sweat crept down his spine. And when she led him to the creek after school to show him how she caught frogs bare-handed, his heart soared. That night at dinner, he blushed when his dad mentioned the new girl, said something about knowing her uncle. He felt a red flush creep up around his ears and into his cheeks, but hoped his dad was too busy burning the steaks and his mom was too busy keeping his sister Sal in her highchair to notice. He refrained from reaching to scratch his back where he itched from the grass, a reaction he always got from new spring shoots. Once, when he and his best friend Mike rolled down Sotter’s Hill in their underwear, his mom had to take him to the doctor for antibiotic cream. But this time he didn’t scratch, and he didn’t mind.  All through dinner he recalled lying in the grass with Mary, how he’d taken his shirt off in the hot afternoon sun, how they’d found the softest spot at the edge of the trees, how he’d kept as still as he possibly could and never run out of things to say as the breeze whispered across his shoulders, her neck and knees.

He went to bed itching to go to school the next day.

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Remedy by Michelle Elvy

The fact that my dad moved out did not surprise me. It had been coming a long time. I had expected it, even wanted it. What surprised me was the scene I found when I came home from soccer practice that day. I walked through the kitchen door, saw Mom standing at the long kitchen counter, the one we climbed on as kids and helped roll biscuits on. She held a meat mallet in one hand, tenderizing steaks for dinner. Across the room was Dad, leaning on the table drinking a Budweiser, looking as if nothing had happened though his sweaty brow and shaky hand told me otherwise. And then there was my older brother Robbie, sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, his eye swelling yellow and green the size of a baseball. My mother looked up briefly. My brother appeared beaten, but his one good eye told me otherwise. No one spoke. Then Dad grabbed a steak off the counter — a thick juicy one that Mom had not yet pulverized — and placed it gently on Robbie’s eye. “It’ll help,” he said, as he made for the door. He glanced back once, not at my mother and not at me, but at Robbie, who half-shrugged, half-nodded.

My mother took the floppy Popeye-remedy from Robbie’s eye, offered him a cold-pack and a dose of ibuprofen instead.  Then she placed the steak on the counter and pounded it tender.

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French Kiss by Michelle Elvy

The date began badly. First, she turned up her nose at my suggestion of sushi: “Ew! I want real food!” So we found ourselves at a picnic table eating hamburgers and fries, hers dipped in a large pile of blubbery mayo.

Back in the car, she switched the radio from Waits to Madonna. I thought about kicking her out right then.

But I’m a gentleman, so I suggested wine at my place (she was French, after all), but she said, “No, that’s boring,” and next thing I know we’re down by the lake drinking Jaegermeister. Jaegermeister, for chrissakes! Haven’t drunk that stuff since college. I managed not to puke this time, even when she said, “I’m going to fuck you now, oui?” What could I say? I was powerless in her hands, her mouth, her cunt. She scared the hell out of me, from her rock-hard nipples to her abundant thighs to her curious tongue. I envisioned news flashes next day: Culture Clash: Carniverous Frenchie Fucks Shy Biology Teacher Dead. She was all energy, grinning and grinding, sound and sexual fury. I ached for days, especially where my knee wedged into the dashboard. How she fit all those ways I never did figure.

I kept her number for a long time. “Call me,” she said as she slipped the paper into my jeans pocket. Not a question, more a demand. I wanted to, I really did.

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Bedtime Story by Michelle Elvy

Let me tell you, child, the story of how your father became your father.

Not the story of how his sperm crashed into my egg, how mad passion made a sweet sticky union that turned two into one and then in a split second became three. That is a good story, too, but this one is better.

We were driving down Highway 1, me at the wheel and him dialing the radio. Windows down, heatwave hitting us hard. Supertramp: Give a Little Bit. He turned it up, lit a cigarette, put it to my lips like he always did, his sweet salty fingers so close I wanted a nibble. When I turned my head slightly and said No he looked almost hurt. Then I said the thing I’d been hiding for two weeks: I’m pregnant. I couldn’t read his face, and the telling of this simple truth was much like the rest of our relationship: unplanned and hot. I saw the slight slump of his shoulders that accompanied his bent head, his black Oriole’s cap shielding his eyes. And then he stubbed out his Camel unfiltered, exhaled long and slow. He took the pack from his Tshirt pocket, turned it over, studied it as if it might reveal some magic wisdom: Run away! Marry her! Find another girl! Then he pulled the remaining cigarettes from the pack, and, one by one, tossed them out the window. Turned Supertramp louder, cupped his hand round my sweaty neck, and grinned.

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Twins by Michelle Elvy

When we turned 50, my twin sister and I inherited money from an uncle. It was a modest amount, enough for me to enroll in a night course at the local college and to buy a new pair of glasses, not the $20 frames at JC Penney but an obscenely expensive designer pair which my made me feel sexy and smart, and which my boyfriend told me to keep on when we made wild rodeo love that night.

Some weeks later, my sister called. “You gotta come visit, see what I purchased with the help of Uncle Robbie’s money!” She sounded excited, so I drove across the state line the following weekend. I rang the bell and adjusted my new glasses, sure she’d notice them right away. She threw open the door with her characteristic enthusiasm and greeted me with a new set of D’s, maybe even Double-D’s. I hugged her, mindful not to squish her new acquisitions, and followed her in, my mind responding in overdrive: Good Lord, Patricia, what have you done? I am reading Foucault, have a copy of Discpline and Punish right here in my bag. Wanna read it? No, of course you don’t. I wonder  if my $300 left over would get me a downpayment on a set of those. I couldn’t afford D’s of course (and they are ridiculous), but C’s might be quite sensible…

You have new glasses! Patricia interrupted.

The better to see you with, I replied.

A Night of Not Knowing by Michelle Elvy

for Jana

They say you are OK, but how am I to know, really? You were taken – taken – so fast, I had no say, and I’m left with nothing but your sudden silence, not the hot cry I expected. We had been one – breathing, feeding, living in unison – and then you were gone, lifted from me swiftly, rushed to a safe sterile place.  And now you lie there in your own world of plastic and tubing and disinfected air, and I lie here in my world of pain, helpless to help you. They say you are ok but I know what I saw: a purple lifeless thing, sticky and wet and tiny in the surgeon’s hands, taken from me to keep alive. I want to take you back, but you’re an impossible fifty meters down the hall, a world away. So I wait, with my belly split by precision incision, my breasts landmines waiting to explode at the slightest touch, my heart throbbing because it cannot feel yours any more. I lie here alone with my searing scar, raw with fear and not knowing.  I lie here sleepless and wait for the moment when I will touch your new skin, smell your new smell, see your tiny fluttering chest, and feel your perfect fingers wrap round my thumb with their miraculous might. I already know the hard suck of your hunger, and my breasts weep with nourishment that you may or may not ever know.

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Island Comfort by Michelle Elvy

Fun comes in large doses round here. Babies swing on tire swings, boys climb on wrecked hulls, girls fish with hermit crabs. Your North Carolina towhead is right at home among the island kids. She glances up at you from the water’s edge, her face happy for the first time since her dad died.

You sit on the porch, grating coconut just as Kalesi taught you. You steal a peek at her expert strokes and strong arms, want to do it just right, as if these small tasks will put order back into your life. She pours water into the bowlful of fluffy white clouds, dives in with both hands and pulls her fingers up through the liquid, and in that moment you see his face again, diving down one last time, his last wave and that optimistic grin. Just before he was gone, forever.

You break down completely now, soft coconut cream running in rivers to your elbows as you cover your eyes with your fists. Kalesi brushes back your bangs. You are glad for her tender touch, surrender to the sobs. And despite all the fury and noise in your head, you know you are safe here.

You climb into bed with your child, breathe in her sweet salty skin. You catch a glimpse of a black speck in her whiteblonde hair: lice. You sigh, think: it’s a small price to pay for the comfort of this place.

Patent Leather by Michelle Elvy

You usually don’t look past the sunshine face, moon mouth and neatly plaited hair. You usually don’t look past the pastel Polly Flinders dress, turned down bobbi-socks, and black patent-leather shoes.

You usually don’t look.

And if you don’t look, you miss the road map tracking the girl’s nine-year life across this earth: the sharp outline of square shoulders under puffy sleeves, the hard jaw offsetting apple blossom cheeks, the always alert irises behind baby-doll lashes.

If you don’t look, you might not see the girl at all.

Certainly Justin Prattle never looked.

And so, when he pushed the girl into the playground dirt one cold October morning, he could not have guessed what would happen next. He did not expect that she would gather her scattered books and pick herself up, rub away her snot and tears, and face him with a flash of fury and a precisely placed patent leather kick.

Some boys don’t know how to read maps.

Berlin Story by Michelle Elvy

for Werner

Once upon a time there was a man who loved trains. He rode a train to work. He vacationed in old-timey steam engines, took his family on countryside train-rides. He dreamed about trains that lit up all corners of his city, that didn’t speed through dark spaces where no one got out. He built a model railroad in his basement, with trees and mountains and people and villages and trains that went wherever they wanted to.

Once upon a time a girl met the man who loved trains. He took her to his basement and showed her his little city. He walked her out back, along the traintracks as far as they went, which was not very far at all, because overgrown weeds greened over rusty red, and just beyond was a wall that could not be climbed. The man told her of a past she knew from books: airstrikes and airlifts, hunger and hope. His life was in those tracks.

Once upon a time the man and the girl danced together, smashed concrete with hammers, thumbed their noses at ol’ Erich and laughed at outdated regimes. Trains rumbled behind his house again.

Once upon a time, the man who loved trains was dying. The girl recalled the tiny free world, and the bigger walled world. She remembered Tanzen and Klopfen, the feel of history’s concrete weight in her hands. She reckoned the man had a good life, because he and his city lived a life that always got better.

From The Doctor, With Love by Michelle Elvy

I am tired, man, beat.
feel like a whiny kid,
are we there yet,
need to sleep!
Don’t know if I can walk
another mile, though you might talk
me into it. ’Cause though I’m
stomped and scuffed,
and have wrinkles and pocks,
you say they’re not wrinkles,
but creases and folds –
you say I have character,
you say I’m not old.
You caress me,
hold me and stroke
the soft spots between my folds.
I love how you touch me,
your hands warm on my shape,
and I know we are bonded
by more than duct tape.

Remember that dog shit?
And the chewing gum?
It’s a hazardous world, but you, old chum,
scraped and washed me clean of all
those insults, every single time.
Then came the thinning –
your hair, my sole.
We’re well suited, you and I –
together, we’re whole.

And though you toss me
in the corner each night,
I feel a surge of affection
the next morning
as you pick me up gently again,
choose me over the Nikes, Adidas
and even those Florsheims
that your mother once bought,
back when you were jobhunting.
You look right past them,
once shiny and loud
now dusty with disuse.
I wait quietly and think,
I am here for you.

We’re both thinner, older,
greyer, slower,
but you are still you
and I am The Doctor.
And I feel it deep down,
you never say it but I know:
I am not just any old loafer.