Summer 1952, by Susan Lesser

On the “Early Bird Show” the weatherman says we’ve had thirty-two days with temperatures over a hundred degrees. “Miz Burgess, out in Pilot Point phoned in yesterday. She saw 114 on her thermometer, ‘round about two-thirty. And Butch Hoagland called in just after lunch Tuesday to report 103 in the shade out at the fairgrounds. We have a forecast high of 101 for today. Same for tomorrow and, sorry folks, no rain in sight.” I am nine. My brother is six. This is Texas in July in the early 1950s. We are not allowed to talk when the weatherman is telling us this stuff.

Outside, the reddish, heavy clay earth is cracked and fissured, like a badly done mosaic. The unwatered grass beside the driveway is scorched yellow-brown and crunches when we step on it. Only the red ants seem to carry on normally as they scurry to build their nests deep under ground.

For nine cents admission, we can spend the afternoon at the air-conditioned Campus Theater. A Holloway Bar, caramel on a wooden stick, costs a nickel there.  My teeth sink into to the sweet goo until I can’t open my mouth and I just have to watch the movie and wait until the candy melts. I have seen “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” three times.

My mother hums a lot these days, a tuneless sort of hum. She talks about going back to Canada to visit. She tells us stories about growing up far north of Toronto, about swimming in clear, pine-ringed lakes, and ice skating for miles on the frozen river that ran through town. I have never seen my mother cry, but I have heard her humming.

By late afternoon we are all waiting for the blazing day to end. The sun sinks abruptly in the Southwest, gathering momentum as it approaches the flat horizon and dropping out of sight so suddenly I expect to see a crimson splash as it dives into the western sky.  After dark we go outside. Lawn sprinklers are turned on now, making soft whirring sounds as they spin.  Little kids run around in the flying spray, wearing nothing but their underwear. I have to put on my bathing suit if I want to cool off. I am too old now and my mother wouldn’t want anyone to say I wasn’t being brought up to be a lady.

June bugs fly onto the patio, under the yellow floodlight. They bump into the lightbulb, singe their wings, and fall to the ground, buzzing, and scolding, until they recover and take off again.

Sometimes the four of us all pile into the two-tone brown DeSoto and head for the Watermelon Pavilion down on Route 24. “Men in the front and ladies in the back,” my brother calls out. He always says that. The screen door slams behind us as we climb in. We never lock our doors.

No one goes to the Watermelon Pavilion until after dark. It sits on a corner lot where they sell Christmas trees in December under the same fat-bulbed Crayola color lights that hang over the picnic tables in the summer. At the back of this set-up stretches a line of huge white enamel coolers holding the watermelons. Dry ice smoke rises up eerily from somewhere deep inside the coolers. Margaret King lives three houses down from us. She says if you touch dry ice, you will burn your fingers right off. In front of the coolers are several long tables where the watermelon butchers work. They toss the melons around like so many green party balloons, using sharp cleavers to whack them open and expose the delicious glistening pink insides.

We sit down, each of us with a huge triangle of melon, and bite the sweetest pink point off the top. It is so cold, colder I think than Jell-O, or Fudgesicles or even long ago snow in Toronto. I chew each bite ever so slowly and the tiny, sugary, crunchy, pink bubbles pop, one by one, in my mouth.

One of the butchers leaves his post and comes out to the picnic tables with a red rubber water hose. “Ya’ll stand up. I’m comin’ through.” We get up and he hoses all the accumulation of syrupy, sticky juice off the tables. We sit back down. The seats are wet, but nobody cares.

Back home, Daddy raises the door in the hall ceiling and turns on the attic fan. It shudders to life and swirls its hot breath through the house. I would like to dream about icicles.

Cannibal Woman, by Peggy Adams

This story brings together two divergent legends — Cannibal Woman, the gruesome bogey-woman of the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest, and the Bodhisattva Kwan Yin.

This is a story of Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion.  Kwan Yin is the one who hears the cries of the world, the very heart beat of loving-kindness.  She is known for her willingness to appear in any guise, whatever will help someone toward love, openness, and awareness.  I am sure you have seen her yourself—looking out at you from a friend’s face, or smiling at you in the bus.  I have seen her many times, often in this room of women writing.

One day, yesterday or long ago, as the sun began to rise, a woman paced in a clearing in the forest, crying aloud, raising her arms to the sky—if you were close by, you would have heard her wailing, “What will become of me, I am all alone, no one’s plans depend on me, my future will be dark and cold, I am lost, what will become of me?”  She walked back and forth, too numb to notice the way the dawn lit the pine trees, too cold with fear to be warmed by the sun.

As she paced, her attention was caught by a movement in the pines.  An old woman walked out into the grove, whistling like a thrush, whistling like a catbird.  The wailing woman stopped to listen, and the old woman came near, holding out one hand filled with mountain blueberries, her other hand behind her back.  The fearful woman felt her own hunger, and reached for the berries.  Immediately the old woman dropped the berries and swept her other hand across the weeping woman’s eyes, sealing them with melted wax fresh from the honeycomb. 

Blinded and terrified, the woman fell to the ground.  She scrabbled her hands around, and grasped at the legs of the old woman, which had grown as big a tree trunks—her sandals were like tabletops and her naked legs were ropy with muscles.  The fearful woman cried, “Oh, why did I forget the warnings from my childhood, Cannibal Woman always whistles—now I am caught!”

And Cannibal Woman shouted down at her from high above, “Yes, you have forgotten many things, but I have not forgotten my taste for crispy flesh.  You are mine, and soon you will meet my fire.”  Cannibal Woman wrapped a willow branch twice around the fearful woman’s arms, pinning them to her body, saying, “Now you are a perfect bundle for the spit.” 

She tossed the bound woman into a big burlap sack that she slung over her shoulder.  As Cannibal Woman ran through the forest, the woman in the sack wept and screamed.  The burlap scratched her as she bounced against Cannibal Woman’s bony rump, as she was tossed from side to side.  Her wits left her, all she felt was fear and speed, speed toward the inevitable—her mind was a whirling cyclone as Cannibal Woman ran on and on, singing a song about sating her hunger, droning and whooping through the woods.

At last, Cannibal Woman slowed to a walk, and the fearful woman, bound and blind, found herself tumbled out of the sack onto cold rocky ground.  She lay still, paralyzed with fear.  The grisly giant woman kicked her to the side, and began snapping wood, thumping logs down with hollow thuds, one upon the other.

Cannibal Woman built her fire and muttered, “I will truss her to the spit and I will baste her ‘til she’s done, baste her and taste her ‘til she’s done, done, done.” 

She struck a match, and as the sulfur flavored the air, the wood took flame and started to crackle.  The fearful woman turned on her side, and the wax sealing her eyes was just translucent enough for her to make out the roaring stack of wood.  As she rolled over, the willow withy rolled too, and loosened just enough that she could begin to feel her hands.

The terrified woman realized that these were her last moments—soon she would be dead.  She breathed in and thought, if this is my fate, I will know it, at least.

And she began to inch toward the fire.  As she did, she felt its warmth, like sunlight, like the furnace in winter, like the first hot summer day.  Her shoulders relaxed as the fire bathed her, and she let her heart open toward it.  She remembered wading in the river as a girl, moving from shaded cool water into warm spots where the sun dappled and minnows darted.

She moved closer and closer to the fire, her last and worst fear.  She lifted her face to it.  She felt as if she were falling in love, she felt her blood flowing from her toes to her fingers, she felt tears warming her cheeks—ahhh, the wax sealing her eyes was melting down.  She realized that the willow had almost released her, and she wiped the wax away.  She saw the gold and red flames—she looked around for the giant Cannibal Woman.

But she saw no huge devourer, only a beautiful woman sitting on a bench, holding a cup of water toward her.  The once fearful woman, not bound, not blind, recognized Kwan Yin, who had appeared in the guise of Cannibal Woman to help her find her soul.

Kwan Yin said, “Edge close to fear, and you will learn its empty nature—edge close, and wait and see.”

And the woman walked out of the forest, feeling her very life coursing through her, feeling the arms of her own life embracing her.

The Color of a Prickly Pear's Heart, by Pat Longoria

Do you know that color? The color in between, after the milk and sugar and butter have been mixed and have begun to boil, but before the mixture reaches the hard-candy stage, when a spoonful of it forms a perfect caramel ball when dropped in a glass of water. That color that is just the hint of sweetness of a soft caramel dissolving in your mouth, a brief note of butter melting on the tongue. It has a whisper of pink in it, a faint blush. That is the color of my mother's flushed skin as she leans over the stove and stirs and stirs with the wooden spoon in the speckled kettle.

She has sent me out to the monte, just past the pasture and the cemetery, to pick prickly pears for the cactus candy she is making. I carry a few dozen of the tunas home in a tin pail. They are a deep, purplish-brownish red like nothing else I have ever seen. They are not as deep as the blood that spills from the neck of the goat that my grandfather has slaughtered for our Easter dinner, the blood that pours in a living stream into the white of the enameled basin. There is something lifeless about that red of the pear-shaped tunas; they turn like knobs as I cut them from the cactus. Nestled together in the metal pail, they look like they more properly belong in the box of rusted hinges and old doorknobs and bent nails that my father keeps in the old shed. Yes, that is it: they are a rusted knob of a fruit, hard, born in dryness and suffering, the fruit of the poor.

The tunas make a hard sound, like knocking, when I dump them out onto the wooden table in the kitchen. Mama lifts each one with metal tongs and holds it over the open flame of the stove to burn off the wispy spines. When the tunas cool, she finally sits down for the first time that day in the steamy kitchen, with a sigh of aching joints and wilted skirts. The paring knives with the wooden handles are old and blunt, but my mother's hands are sure and deft as she peels the tunas. The dry skin of the fruit peels off in short strips to reveal a surprising interior: a scarlet pulp that drips with moisture. Where does it come from, I wonder, this hidden well, this tender heart? Here in the scrublands the rains are infrequent but violent: the llovisnas that pound the metal roof and wash out the caliche roads and drown the chickens that are too silly to take shelter in the hen house. The prickly pear cactus blooms after these rains and gives birth to that bruised fruit, the fruits that my mother sweetens and boils and then bakes into candied red squares for the family feasts. 

Life Lines, by Maryam Steele

The inside of my brain is lined with maps.

Or is that my heart?

Definitely my bathroom.

When you come in the house, you can see

the tiny room across from the door is papered with maps.

Crete keeps falling down, and who could blame it?

It’s old and the paper feels more like fabric: quiet and thick,

yet it tears at the slightest glance of tape.

It’s an island shaped like a funky dragon

dotted with Hertz Rentals, and I love it.

The others maps are closer to home:

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine, Yellowstone.

Ontario.

If I made a map of dreams,

all my moonlit roads would lead there.

If I could chart my childhood,

all streams would flow from one Canadian lake.

It has been so many years since I’ve seen it,

more than half my life.

If I went back, what would happen?

Like trying to take a Polaroid of Narnia —

would it implode?

Like soil samples from Neverland —

it could slide out from under me

and vanish.

Would Canada take back its memories,

and the dreams it bestowed?

What about the blue-gold dream

when I was a dolphin girl

swimming in the sun-sparkled quiet shallows?

Maybe.

I’m willing to take that risk someday

to bring my children to the place

they have heard so many simple stories about:

the baby sparrow, the caterpillar tree, the mean dog.

The sand hill, higher than a house.

My uncle catching frogs for bait and

me setting them free when he wasn’t looking,

his anger.

How I got this scar on my leg, the territorial barn swallows,

the water — always it is the water

in the background of every memory.

I can forget the sky, the grass, the leafy trees —

it was always summer there —

but never the water stretched out like an open palm.

Did you know I am part mermaid?

It’s true.

Not the part that can swim well, because I can’t.

The part that loves and loves and loves the water,

never wanting to leave.

I can swim like magic in my sleep,

and always no matter where I am

that lake in Ontario shimmers

and holds my heart beating beneath its gentle tides.

I have an overflowing binder of maps from

magazines, atlases, the trash, school,

from friends, from this town and other countries.

I don’t even know all the maps I’ve got in there,

this collection surprises even me.

But I do know the one map I no longer have: Jamaica.

I remember finding it at a library sale, adopting it,

and sitting in my room staring at the shape of Jamaica

with blue blue blue all around it.

I have never been to an island, and because of that

there is something magic about them.

My eyes snagged on Runaway Bay,

mesmerized by the name, the letters.

I gave that precious map as a gift, an apology really,

for something I should never have been apologizing for,

and have missed it far longer than I missed the man I gave it to.

I knew I would never go to Jamaica, but it was his dream.

I wonder where that map is now, if it and the ex ever made it there.

I live inside my ultimate map, a cartographical woman.

These constellations of freckles, these stretch marks,

lines on my knuckles and eyelids and lips,

these 2 long scars, perpendicular and unrelated.

My son asks if the biggest scar will ever go away.

No, I say, it’s here forever.

I don’t mind since it reminds me that I nearly died

but didn’t.

My hands, I watch them aging

back and forth through time:

today they look like my grandmother’s hands at 75,

tomorrow they will look like my own at 15.

I wonder at my eyes, at what they tell,

what they keep secret.

I have never been good at hiding my feelings,

a talent I would love to have.

If only I could pin my heart inside my coat

instead of on my sleeve,

it would be an improvement even if

you still heard it thumping like a drum

when I try to stay calm.

Here in this body are my childhood, my children,

my grief and my mistakes,

my blissful moments.

This form is my map, my country.

The roads and coasts it has named,

and its empty, unmarked places

are equally beautiful:

the known and unknown,

the past and future,

glowing at the edges and flowing as water.

Encounter, by Sue Norvell

Sun-warmed stone

lures you out, garter snake.

Harmless beauty, sleekly black

and greenish gold, gleaming in your new spring skin.

Settled and serene

— perhaps sleeping? You're draped

across the sidewalk's step

like an abandoned jump rope

dropped by an absent grandchild.

Which of us is more startled?

You, who saw the threat of death descending?

Or I, who skipped a step, lurching

to avoid your sudden-vacant space? 

You vanished between slate and grasses —

I landed safely on the walkway.

We go our separate ways.

I write of it with pulse still pounding.

Summer, by Yvette Rubio

Lawnmowers buzz green

Teapot steeps on red front porch

Cat naps in light patches

Cat naps in light patches

Big black ant on orange wall

White compost pot full

White compost pot full

Dappled sunbeams spill on floor

Shady backyard hums

Shady backyard hums

Bright red bee balm stretches up

Purple clematis

Purple clematis

Opens wide against the sky

Earthworms dive down down

Earthworms dive down down

One red tomato flashes

Through green leaf branches

Through green leaf branches

Past tangled morning glories

Sparrows contra dance

I Admire Poets, by Sue Perlgut

I admire poets and their craft. Grace Paley, Marge Piercy, Irena Klepfitz, Adrienne Rich, Katharyn Howd Machan. Not that I can quote one line. Nothing comes to mind. Not one word. 

In all the novels and murder mysteries that I read, someone, anyone, is always quoting poetry or Shakespeare. They are usually British. I wonder, are the Brits taught differently than us?

I imagine the following scenario in a first grade class or whatever they call it:

Teacher: "Class, today we are going to read Shakespeare." (No Dick and Jane for them). "Memorize stanzas seven and ten from As You Like It. Someday you'll quote those lines in a novel you write."

It's not that I don't read poetry, it's that I don't remember what I read. 

I can blame it on my age, but truthfully once I'm finished reading, it's gone. Out of my mind as if I need room for the next thought. 

My mother wrote poetry. She was even published in the local newspaper when she was a teenager. They ran a poetry contest and she kept winning. Finally they made a rule about the number of times you could enter. So, she submitted the poems under her two first cousin’s names and they became the winners. 

I have two small notebooks, journals really, of some of her poems. I tried reading them years ago but seeing her handwriting made the missing of her so current and present I closed the book. They sit on my bookshelf, cracked red spines facing out. I never look at them.