I
sit alone in a high leather chair,
look
through an ordinary window, bisected and locked.
A
girl bicycles into sight from the left. She has tied her
hair
back. Her white shoes move in circles and out of frame.
A
boy walks by from the right. A backpack burdens
his
shoulders. He holds his face as though he hopes
for
solidity, but it's transparent and not happy. He
would
hate to know that I saw him. In the center of the window
the
road to Point of Rocks is empty. It reminds me of
a
road I lived beside when I was five, in Perris,
California.
If I walked it I might find my father in his
overalls
and my mother's thick body in a cotton dress. They stand
by
an olive tree as they did in the only photograph
I
have of them together. Her head reaches his top overall pocket.
His
long arm angles around her shoulders, his hand on her hip.
I
want, once, to watch them touch.
Norma
Chapman (in Perris, California, Passager
Press)
