Kathryn Silver-Hajo
|
Chain of Fools It’s a sun-drenched cut-grass balmy-air day and I’m speeding down the street in a borrowed jalopy as Aretha wails One of these mornings on the radio hair tousling elbow out the window feeling strong when I see my boo with his Frank Zappa moustache and winning grin driving the other way and I wave the chain is gonna break and I laugh and my heart thumps chain chain chain and that’s when I notice the concrete truck crossing from a side street in front of me and I pump the brakes like mom taught me to do but nothing happens and I turn the wheel hard and I’m parallel with the beast looming next to me its whirligig thing mixing concrete ready to pour and the road is narrowing and I’m pounding the horn chain chain chain but nothing comes out and I scream and I scream and the driver looks over and the “O” of his mouth is like the “O” of the concrete chute and he jams his brakes that Omigod work but now he’s scowling and I’m squid-armed and quaking and now I can never say thank you mister I’m still alive I’m still alive I’m still alive. ** This poem first appeared in Unbroken. ** The Breach She’d long since despaired of his return, but the press of his rough fingers on the small of her back, the smoke and salt of his lips, were imprinted in her psyche despite all efforts at forgetting. She’d waited for the groan of the fickle doorbell until waiting became a humiliation and her thoughts turned bitter in the hard loneliness of her bed. She vowed if he ever reappeared, he wouldn’t make it past the threshold. But then there he was, lunch box in hand on that chilly autumn day, the smell of decaying leaves and wood fire in the air, as if he’d just been off working at the construction site and was home for supper. And just like that she was back in his arms, gnawing at his mouth, the lunch box dropping with a metallic clank, all the questions and mysteries between them seething in their embrace. ** This poem first appeared in Bending Genres. ** That Starry Night Celeste stole out into the cobalt dark, the wind threatening to knock the stars off their axes. She pulled her rough blanket closer, shuddered as she passed the little stone église, its spire an accusing finger pointing heavenward. Anticipation throbbed in her throat as she approached her lover’s house. She didn’t care that he was divorced, or Jewish. Didn’t care what her stern, Catholic parents would say. She thought only of his warmth encircling her, the amber of his skin, the moment he would open that door for her. Violette The moon and those gawping stars illumined her deed, but it was too late to take it back. Her husband lay bleeding on the threshold of their dark, drafty house. He’d arrived reeking of absinthe, trembling with anarchic rage, ready to aim all the schoolhouse-bullying, beatings, and disappointments of life onto her like a magnifying glass focusing the power of the sun. She’d been startled by the tumult of the midnight sky and he by the savagery of her blows. A shiver swirled inside her now as she dropped to the cold blue of the stoop. Joseph He sat hunched at his bedroom window looking out over the Provençal countryside he’d called home his whole life. The huddled houses with their banded roofs and soft mounding mountains beyond belied the churning in his mind and heart. He’d tended the family’s épicerie but since his parents were gone, his brother long-since moved away, monotony blanketed his days like fog. Joseph recalled when he’d paint the meadow, hills, and his lost love with a thrill in his chest. Now he gripped the handle of his leather valise, stepped out into the hollow of night. Marie and Marcelle waved from the dimly lit window toward their parents’ receding silhouettes. Maman and Papa had saved every last franc to send them to school in Paris and the girls missed them already. But as the train huffed beyond the platform where lavender swayed darkly in the distance, their thoughts roiled like the clouds in the boisterous sky. How they’d gaze up at the new Eiffel Tower! Sip Bordeaux from etched glasses with dapper boys in top hats and capes! Stroll with ladies in plumed hats amidst the fountains and terraces of the World’s Fair. Even the unimaginable distance they’d be travelling thrilled them, ecstatic as they were to embrace the unknown. ** Deep in the Woods Summer weekends were spent in the old farmhouse. My brother and I sitting in the glow of the fire, our parents reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the smoky aromas of dinner lingering, cricket-song punctuated by the snap of escaping sparks. We’d found a tin box of toys which we gripped as we listened to the story of the lost little girl. When the fire and comforting smells receded and we were tucked in, I listened to the scratch of mice in the walls, drip of rain seeping through musty beams and wondered if the dark might swallow us up. ** This was originally published in Microfiction Monday. ** Silence Is a Stranger What we’d argued about seems beside the point. Mostly there was the sensation of my feet slipping on the shifting dune. A fall, a crash, a seemingly unbreachable silence. It took a death, a shared grief, to unravel it — our eyes meeting across a room filled with faceless mourners mollifying sadness with canapes, cake and wine. After that, it was almost easy. As if it had never even happened. ** This was first published in Six Sentences. ** Kathryn Silver-Hajo is a Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Food Writing nominee. “The Sweet Softness of Dates” was selected for the 2023 Wigleaf Top 50 longlist. Kathryn’s work appears in Atticus Review, CRAFT, Emerge Literary, Ghost Parachute, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, Ruby Literary, The Ekphrastic Review, The Phare, and other lovely journals. Her flash collection Wolfsong and YA novel Roots of The Banyan Tree were both published in 2023. She lives in Providence with her husband and curly-tailed pup, Kaya. kathrynsilverhajo.com |
