Celebrations
Flying Woman
for a long time, she flew only when she thought no one else was watching
Flying Naked With Jesus
When I was younger, I used to fly a lot in my dreams. I used to dream I was naked too. My grandma said it was all because of original sin & that if I lived a pure life that someday I would be able to fly naked with Jesus & then she looked at me & said many are called, but few are chosen & later on I thought it was a damn good thing too & I gave up pure living for a long time after that just to be sure.
Foolproof
secure in the knowledge that it’s hard to ruin mashed potatoes
Flight
I knew a man in college who grew up in the inner city of Chicago & what he was doing in Iowa I never did figure out. But whenever he would see a jet trailing across the sky, he would stop everything he was doing & he would watch. Once, after a jet was gone & there was nothing left but the white line disappearing like a scar into the blue, he turned to me & said, An airplane is a miracle & I didn’t give it much thought, but now & then, when I am ready to give up hope for human beings in general, & for one or two of them who are bugging me specifically, I will look to the sky & there will be one of those miracles & I will remember it’s all about concentrating on the right thing.
Fine Start
I would not say I love you so much if you could teach me a better way, I said & she said that’d do fine for now.
Enough Time (Feminine)
Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.
Disappearing Act (aka Magical Thinker)
Can make stuff magically disappear, especially if it’s got a lot of butter & sugar in it
Creature on Fire
This is a creature on fire with love, but it’s still scary since most people think love only looks like one thing, instead of the whole world.
Clean Underwear
Make sure you got clean underwear, she always said, in case you get in an accident & I always figured that’d be the least of my worries, but now I’m older & I see there’s a lot you can’t control & some you can control & clean underwear is one of those you can. For the most part.
Christmas Dragon
What’s that supposed to be? I said. That’s a Christmas dragon, he said. If Santa rode around with this instead of all those reindeer I think it’d put real teeth in the naughty-or-nice thing.
Bunch of Bones
You know why kids like skeletons? he said & I said I didn’t &
he said it was because it didn’t matter if you were good or bad, you
ended up a bunch of bones & he stopped for a second & then he added,
but you don’t have to worry, I’ll still be good.
Bits of the World (feminine)
gathering up bits of the world & setting them out in an order that her children can understand
Bittersweet
She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.
Beginning
he followed the sun & she followed the stars & in dreams they listened closely for the beginning of all things, for that was where they knew they’d find each other
Balance
If you had to balance as much stuff as I do, she said, you’d take an hour in the bathroom every morning too.
Bad Witches
This is a poison soup to kill all the bad witches, she said. How can you tell the difference? I asked. O, good witches are very polite & say no thank you. Bad witches just die.