1957:
Tennessee sun casts
green
and bronze shadows across my legs, face, arms.
I sit on an overturned crate
in
the run alongside the house on Eccles.
Tangled vines grow in the chainlink fence
that
separates me from the Webbs next door.
Small bugle flowers trumpet their
sweetness,
settle
into the hot dampness of the hairs along my neck.
The drone of bees as close as the
smell,
yellow
and black striped z's standing still in mid-air,
pulled
in by perfumed cups of yellow.
Mrs. Webb's voice
clangs
against
the pots as she prepares for evening.
Paint peels from the bathroom window
sill,
white
scraps falling away from old wood
like
the bark of a paper birch.
Then, water running.
A door inside my house clicks shut,
locks
someone out.
I imagine the bathroom filling with
mushroom mist,
mirror
dissolving in shadow,
Mother's
tears muffled by steam.
Bees grace the air between me and the
honeysuckle,
gather
me in their flight.
I do not move,
feel
their feathery feet, wings
brush
against the sweat necklaces
that
bead between rolls of babyfat.
From me to the flowers, they journey.
Their buzz of languid purpose
soothes
me
leaves
me with images of yellow
and
the smell of honeysuckle.