Tumbleweed, Beck Chason-McCarthy
Damp hair unraveling from a bun or braid at sundown
Sending spirals of floral Fructis fragrance
The swish of cargo pants
Tight white cotton t shirts pulled down to the palms of her hands
Fingers with Talons curving the over the tips
When I ask she says “I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger.”
But I think she is perfect and beautiful
She leaves glitter in our floorboards
And it’s still there when we move away a decade later
On snow days we grab mugs and go outside to our little patch of earth
Chicken wire bordered by the plastics factory parking lot
scoop up the freshly fallen crystals
Run inside and drizzle Grade A maple syrup from steamboat landing
Two decades later and my mom mentions how we’re alike
and you can tell by her tone that it’s an insult and a disappointment and a warning all rolled up
into one.
She greets us at the airport with a hug each
Stale beer on her breath, foreign and adult
Heading out she throws a dress on bra less and tosses underwear in a bag she slings over her
shoulder
Woken up by the smell of mangoes and fresh bread; baguettes who’s growth was stunted by the
strong coffee they grow here
There’s a market outside my window every week and my mother gets me starfruit and kiwi to try
even though she’s allergic
When we go out to eat I like the mouth feel of saying maracuja more than I like drinking it
Sleeping on the beach the last time she sees us all she asks “can all the kids sleep in your tent? I
wanna have sex tonight.”
When they split she stays in touch by swapping sides
The Stranger on The Plane isn’t a stranger, but an ex of a law school legend
Hannah lucks out and gets to play spider solitaire for 5 hours
A handful of years later she’s my best friends stepmom
So I get the Stranger on the Plane for Saturday night Sleepovers
She asks how I am every time
And I’m too truthful while everyone else is getting snacks
We all pretend for 3 months that they’re just friends
Driving an hour every weekend past albino deer
But when she walks in to tell us what we already know she flashes a rock and my Jaw drops
So for five years I’m upgraded from two to three parents
Long distance and addiction make it a part time job though
The downside to WASPs is that they sting
So by the time we’re finishing Freshman year and the relationship isn’t Fresh anymore
old patterns resurface
The thing is
when people tell you who you are you should believe them
So when I heard “everyone relapses eventually” that should have been like a trip to Pamplona
The thing is
On this side of the Atlantic the people who court bulls are clowns
The thing is
When things got serious you gave me makeup
The thing is
When things got sour I dyed my hair and cut it short
The thing is
When I went to school bright blue, a girl tugged on my crown to see if it was a wig
And the thing is
It was real and rooted
And the thing is
They were all rootless
And the thing is
Without the prairie grass that used to run deep everything is a dust bowl