The Siren Call

When I went overboard, the shock of the cold was greater than the shock of your hand at my back. I swallowed the dark Atlantic, warmed to its voices. Keening whales sang me to her. She was tangled in your fraying halyard.

One Heart Breaking

Splinters rasp. Pancreas.

The word cracks

it open.

The surgeon’s voice echoes

months

in a thunderclap

straight down the middle.

Your last sigh, exhaled,

broke it forever.

Yet, listen. Days like today

I can hear it

sounds like pebbles

at the seashore.

 Pep  13/8/66 - 16/6/03

Always for you, Pep.  143

          Answer #14 was also           

Idle Threats

Of all the people to criticize my adipocytic indiscretion, you’d think Grace would have the decency to give a girl the benefit of a lapse. The gym. On Monday. We’ll see how many laps she’s made of.

Did Grace say that, too? is the question for   My answer: 29

Egress

Behind closed eyes, anything is possible. Your smile, your body long against mine.  When I open them, you’re never the yellow butterfly that poses on my glass of wine the first fine spring day. Even so, I just can’t help but peek.

 Why does the caged bird sing? asks   My answer # 4 :) 

Workout Routine

   A handful of classes away from zipping up those jeans, I sashay through the aerobics routine. The blasting disco beat keeps my mind clear as fog. I can’t hack the end, though. This five-minute silence on the mat just keeps killing you.

Where does it hurt?    Answer #16

Eight Hundred and Fifty-Four Steps

   “A pocket full of posies,” Sally thinks as she opens her eyes. Sun bright behind the curtains quickens her pulse, and she claws through the sheets to check the time. Only nine. “Hopscotch, hopscotch.” Why is this rhyme in her head? Out, out. She checks her list against the day ahead, though it will be impossible to balance them. One inevitably outweighs the other.

   She dresses for the gym, remembers she must grab the bags for the market. When she stops to drink from a fountain, she sees she has crossed the city. Instead of shopping bags, she has slung a backpack over her shoulder. She’s wearing a cotton shirt, jeans and hiking boots. Across the street from the fountain is the theater, shuttered and brown, where they saw an adaptation of Bodas de sangre destroyed by that horrendous troupe from Seville. Afterwards, they crossed the city together, far into the night, projecting the future.

   Sally continues, taking long, determined strides as if the impulse of her forward motion will conjure the plaza, the bridge where they stood at midnight. She is certain the village is far away. He drove while she drifted into the countryside, felt the splashing runoff wet the poppies, smelled the sheep and the shadowy pine forests. At the end of a curve was a stone bridge, washed gold in a bluesky sunset.

   Amy would be home from school soon. Sally stops and breathes in. A car whooshes by. She stands at the lookout over the city, squints into the sun. The sky meets the sea in a clear sharp line out past the hospital the cathedral the hotel the cruise ship. Amy is somewhere else now. Toulouse? New York? Far away. Happy enough.

   “Hopscotch, hopscotch, we all fall down.” Sally picks a sprig of fennel from the roadside. He taught her what it looks like, how it tastes sharp, fresh. Makes her mouth water. She shifts the backpack onto both shoulders and shakes her arms. Steps on sunshine.

   

 I stood on the bridge at midnight as the clocks were striking the hour -Longfellow

Quote given for the week gave up 333 words for Light and Shade Challenge

Which Way to Go?

   Crossroads are tricky to maneuver without an all-terrain vehicle. Beware the signposts; they can be misleading. I once found a broken pen that was pointing west, but I ended up having to retrace all eight hundred and fifty-four thousand steps. Big mistake.

   Answer #14