Dawn Raffel - Further Adventures in the Restless Universe

We are lifting a glass.

Our father is back, if not for long. Our father will fly us away with him, my sister and I. There is always an attraction. Statues, valleys, cities we have heard of, and one we have not. Glasgow, Kentucky: Mammoth Cave. The smell is of sulfur. Kill the lantern. Feel your death. The guide strikes a match for us, a glow in the dark. There is a crowd in the earth. These are sensible people, and also us.

A national treasure, our grandfather says.

Nights we eat biscuits, syrup on something, a souvenir spot.

Mother is calling and calling again. We are waiting for parts. Our plane has been grounded. Oil is spilt. The medium has changed, she says, and now it is ink.

Rock, paper, scissors.

Tears.

Milk.

Waking again, it is winter again, it is autumn again — but never, the way it is sung of, spring — and sooty at a window. We will not budge. Mother is not getting younger, she says. Her cough is fresh. There is a rancor in the kitchen, a sash uncinched. “Here,” she says. “ There,” she says. “Eat,” she says. “La, la.”

Men have come to move the earth. Boots, hands. The size of them! Unsupervised and dangerous: Here’s what the job is, Mother will say. A handle is busted, a stone unturned.

My sister and I have unburied a hatchet. Who loves who the most of all?

“Whom,” says our mother.

The postcards are albumed, smeary with want, the range needs attention, and, wouldn’t you know, we have incinerated something. Tourist trap: We knew as much. A sore point of interest. The mail comes and goes. My sister and I are collecting a collection of itinerate postmarks.

Warned, we lick.

Mother has rendered a likeness of us, an indelible expression, double or nothing. Crinoline. Patent. Heels. A purse. Accessories of Mother, in darkened silhouette.

There’s a coin in a pocket — rainy day; a medal our father has saved from the Air Corps. Copper or ribbon: We’d know what it is if we found it again.

Fly away! Poor wet wren; the birdbath is flooded, my sister says. Equipment is failing. The charcoal is almost entirely wrecked.

Mother is singing in spite of words. “What am I to do,” she says, “with everyone leaving.” Crank up jalopy: Here is her father, a bud in the hat. The heart is nipped, tucked up a sleeve. Old refugee. “I am the viper,” the punchline goes. “Vould you like your vindows vashed?” Hysteria, always. But vot is the joke? We are nailed to the wall. The frame is on us.

It is damp in the earth as a matter of course. A traveler ought to have practical footwear.

“Never,” says Mother, or maybe “now, ” atotter with glamor, going off.

There is a monument to something — a place we might have photographed.

Give us your tired, deliberating souls.

The people in town, such as it is, sit on the curb and watch the road go nowhere.

Our feet stick and blister. The farmer’s in the dell again. The mind cannot stay. We are wandering off, or over and out, paired and turned sideways. Time and again, we cannot tell the difference: Which are stalactites, anyway?

Mother is humming, a man on her arm. It is summer again, and it is time to prune the roses, pin the gardenias, trim the clinquant snippets. Season the grill.

Salt, pepper, incense.

Wing and a prayer.

We cannot sleep. There is nobody home. Except for us. Mother has posed and redressed us again: an age she was — or some of the ages Mother has been. We are as she has made us, more and less.

Features, not substance.

Bones.

Paste.

Mother says, “Look.” She says, “Look at the light.”

We are looking at feet.

An aisle is swaying. Rugs ruck up. Again, again, she sings off-pitch, our mother does: a crack in the alto, strings unstrung. It is the hand that is unholdable. Mother drops a syllable, an octave, bags, a delicate matter; breaks a sweat. She disidentifies us. It is dollars to donuts. Dust to dust. The fathers are buried: hers, ours. Bread and roast and cake again, release and reunion — who wants more? We lick our plates.

Mother, untethered, will travel, she says, pretty please: La, la. The gifts she will bring us — wrapped, undone. An empire waits.

A vessel has burst.

We cannot look. We cannot but look.

Men are in the yard again. The body of Mother. A foregone conclusion, Mother would say. The heart is a pump. In the end, it quits.

I will speak for myself: There is no end.

I am calling and calling.

The candles are lit.

These acknowledgments could go on longer than my stories, but in particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Melanie Jackson, to the Dzanc crew — Dan Wickett (arguably the hardest working man in indie publishing), Steve Gillis, Mary Gillis and Steven Seighman, to Marc Chenetier, Monica Manolescu-Oancea and the Observatoire de Litterature Amercaine at the University of Paris for encouragement and incitement when it was much needed, to Gordon Lish, to Terese Svoboda and to Diane Williams. Finally and always, to Mike Evers and our sons, Brendan and Sean. Hey, Sean — thanks for the cover drawing.