tortoise, scissors, lukewarm

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aka: Craft in a Hardcore Love Life

In the kitchen you prepared

vegetables for dinner.

I cut tortoise bits with scissors.

The fabric had

repetitious rabbits too.

We joked about procreation.

You made fun of Nascar.

We sat in the hot bath

until it was lukewarm.

After we ignored

the fact that you were bleeding.

A quilt, you said,

could be very romantic

to make together

someday. Maybe,

I said, after you show me

how to make instant coffee.

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long, live, love

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The Brown Turtle Sex Scandal occurred in 1934 in Kalberta, Cawcawtaw.

Premier Brown Turtle was accused of seducing Mountain Lion Kitten, a family friend and a secretary for Turtle's attorney-general, in 1930 when she was eighteen years old, and continuing the affair for three years.

Kitten claimed that the married premier had told her that she must have sex with him for his sake and that of his invalid wife, Murtle.

She had, she testified, relented after physical and emotional pressure.

Turtle called her story a fabrication, and suggested that it was the result of a conspiracy by Fatty Walrus, her would-be fiancé, and several of Turtle's political opponents in the Kalberta Liberal Party.

Kitten and her father sued Brown Turtle for seduction.

After a sensational trial in June 1934, a jury of six found in favor of the plaintiffs, awarding them ten dozen field mice, respectively.

In an unusual move, Trial Judge Spotty Owl disregarded the jury's finding and dismissed the case.

The High Court of Cawcawtaw eventually overturned the decision and awarded Mountain Lion Kitten another quiet quarter acre of blackberry patches in damages.This award was affirmed by the Judicial Committee of the Forest Privy Council, Cawcawtaw's highest court of appeal at the time.

All of this, however, was largely academic to Brown Turtle, who resigned after the jury's finding.

During the next election, his United Farmers of Kalberta were wiped out of the legislature, failing to retain a single seat.

By next season Brown Turtle’s decomposed body was found by Blue Daffodil Creek, a worn and faded picture of Mountain Lion Kitten clutched in his lifeless hand.

The back of the picture read: Dearest Brown Turtle, my heart has finally found happiness and for that I am eternally grateful…

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nebula, hysteria, america

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The guys in the bar are getting tipsy on their personal hysteria. They work themselves up and others over, their leaning smiles making them look for all the world like conmen trying to unload their third-rate personalities onto the unsuspecting wives of their neighbors. Their voices bob on the perpetual deep rumble that escapes from the gaping South choking on the hoary North as the endless West just huuummmmmsssss.

An army kid is finishing his beer and wondering where is his brother's ear, where his father's hands. "I've traveled, ya know," he says to the eagle splayed across his bottle. "I read, ya know," he adds as he sees me next to him, staring at my map.

I've not traveled, but I can speak many languages. Bigotry is my native tongue, though it's been many years since the words matched the thoughts. Now, I am "progressive." Now, I am Brando asking "what d'ya got," not sure if I'm being earnest or ironic. Now, I am Reagan's crazy ass dreaming up wars in space as much as I am Whitman eyeing the dirt-smeared bodies of the dead and the living. Do not tell me Camus. Do not tell me Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Lorca, or Achebe. I was birthed, ignorant and wailing, into a nebula of Do-Not-Tell-Me.

The army kid spreads his elbows along the bar till his chin nearly touches it. "I've fought for this country, ya know. What have you done?" His face is now hovering near my hand, the smile will not leave his lips.

I continue to read my map as America heaves out of its chair toward the most obvious conclusion.

"What have you done, huh?"

I read: Nanticoke, Morgantown, Somerset, Jasper, Ogallala, Truckee, Sunnyvale, Cambria...
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collage, school, surprise

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School reunion was coming up and I wanted to take a date to the event. I met Abel online. He worked as a film developer. At his work he had created a collage book of pornographic pictures people had brought in store for developing.

‘It’s illegal to make unauthorized copies of people’s photographs,’ he told me. ‘I guess that makes it immoral too.’ He ran his hands down his thighs. ‘It’s just that everyone enjoys flicking through my book,’ he said, ‘and I like to see people smile.’ He laughed before continuing. ‘Did you know that it’s illegal to request general developing stores to develop pornographic negatives?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Well it is,’ he said.

‘I guess that makes it a double negative then?’

‘I guess it does,’ Abel said with confidence.

Next week it was my birthday, and, only two weeks until the reunion. I threw a small party. Abel gave me an envelope. He told me to open it alone. I took my glass of champagne to the bathroom and gently opened the envelope as not to tear it. I wanted to reuse the envelope because it was my favourite shade of pink: soft, delicate and girlie. Abel already knew what I liked. I was giddy with excitement. Inside was a photograph, the picture face down. On the back of the photograph was a neatly scrawled message

Alison,
I know it's sudden but...
Marry me?
Warm wishes,
Abel.

Shook with surprise I turned the photograph over. It was a cunt. A dark, hairy cunt. What? I thought. WHAT? The woman had taken the photographer herself, I could tell by the angle; her hole was a little off center. What an odd thing to do... I couldn’t make out where the woman was but assumed she hadn't taken the photograph while at work. This was a private act. It had nothing to do with me. What? That lonely cunt filled me sadness, it reminded me of an ugly little child, alone after her first day at school.

It was unfortunate that Abel had proposed to me in this way. At the time I was eager to fall in love, and, school reunion was two weeks away. I had always been that ugly little child. I needed to redeem myself, but I knew I couldn't rely on Abel. What if he mentioned his collage book to people at the reunion? It was too greater risk.

I took my friend Debbie to the reunion instead.
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mask, beer, song

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chicky song from Sabra Embury on Vimeo.

severed, baby, feet

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Marcus was more upset than he’d ever been before. Granted, he was just nine years old, but those first nine years contain myriad possibilities for sadness and hurt and grief, so to say he was the most upset he’d ever been was no small matter.

Marcus had punched his best friend in the face. Marcus loved his best friend (her name was Asti – of Indonesian parentage, she was a roguish tomboy with caramel skin and a perfect bowl of oil-black hair atop her round head. She looked ancient and wise, as if she’d been lifted straight from a historical illustration or film about the Mayan civilisation, although Marcus wouldn’t make that connection until he found out about Mayans when he was fifteen and all contact with Asti had long been severed, to the point where she was just a fragment of his mosaic-like memories of primary school). He’d punched her once, hard, with his right fist, and she’d stumbled backwards on disbelieving feet. One of her clunky brown school sandals had slipped off as she tripped backwards over the raised edge of the bitumen basketball court; she was wearing green socks. Marcus couldn’t erase the image of that single upward-pointing green-socked foot from his mind.

He’d punched Asti for the same universal reason anyone does anything: hatred. Marcus had helped Asti in geography class with the question about fjords, Skitza Selletto had been sitting behind them, and when everyone was outside for lunch Skitza had bellowed “Marcus has the hots for Asti!”

“No I don’t!”

All the kids crowded in closer, eager for the confrontation.

Skitza was an experienced predator; he smelled the defeat emanating from Marcus, like the shitty diaper smell of a crying baby. Asti walked up as Skitza went in for the kill.
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cardinal, thwart, vest

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Standing at an Interstate 44 gas pump on the way to Tulsa against intermittent stretches of red dirt and bent branches giving shade to sides of a road where grasses were high, Jacob Parker on his Blackberry, was filling up his Cadillac.

“...two and a half hour drive. It’s not bad. I’ve been doing it once a week for years. An old friend from high school’s in town. She’s married and has a kid. Her husband’s addicted to porn. Do you think that’s a legitimate problem? I know some people are addicted to the internet and some people are recovering alcoholics who still get on occasional benders, but alcoholism’s linked with depression and you can’t even think about fighting the depression until you get to the heart of a drinking problem…can you hold on a minute?”

$36.27.

Jacob Parker’s shirt underneath a gray vest that matched

his slacks became tight and wet.

His rolled, cuffed sleeves started to suffocate his forearms blue.

Streams of salt stung his squinted eyes;

his chest strained from expanding.

Jacob squeezed the pump handle.

$36.36…$36.43…

$36.47, $36.49, .50.

$36.50.

He scanned his dull, whirred surroundings for an omen

to thwart the blazing behind his eyes.

He spotted a cardinal on a faded can of condensed milk

on a rig beside a rig.

A cool breeze blew the nape of his neck.

He let out a slow breath.

He wanted to cry.

He lit a cigarette instead.

“Hey, are you there? Sorry. Spilled some gas on the side of my car. Had to get napkins. Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be dangerous. A spark could ignite a fume and blow me to smithereens, right? Like some crazy Michael Bay scene. Can you imagine?”

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