At the Bottom of the River Read Free

was our first mattress. It made our skin raw. It harbored bedbugs. I used to stand here, at this window, looking out at the shadows of people passing—and they were real people—and I would run my hand over the pattern of ridges in the cover belonging to the kettle. I used to stand over here too, in front of this mirror, and I would run my hands across the stitches in a new tablecloth. And again I would stand here, in front of the cold stove, and run my fingers through a small bag of green coffee beans. In this cage lived a hummingbird. He died after a few days, homesick for the jungle. I tried to take everything one day at a time, just as it was coming up.
    And then?
    I felt sick. Always I felt sick. I sat in this rocking chair with you on my lap. Let me calm her, I thought, let me calm her. But in my breast my milk soured.
    So I was loved?
    Yes. You wore your clothes wrapped tight around your body, keeping your warmth to yourself. What greed! But how could you know? A yellow liquid left a stain here.
    Is that blood?
    Yes, but who bled? That picture of an asphalt lake. He visited an asphalt lake once. He loved me then. I was beautiful. I built a fire. The coals glowed so. Bitter. Bitter. Bitter. There was music, there was dancing. Again and again we touched, and again and again we were beautiful. I could see that. I could see some things. I cried. I could not see everything. What illness was it that caused the worm to crawl out of his leg the day he died? Someone laughed here. I heard that, and just then I was made happy. Look. You were dry and warm and solid and small. I was soft and curved like an arch. I wore blue, bird blue, and at night I would shine in the dark.
    The children?
    They weren’t here yet, the children. I could hear their hearts beating, but they weren’t here yet. They were beautiful, but not the way you are. Sometimes I appeared as a man. Sometimes I appeared as a hoofed animal, stroking my own brown, shiny back. Then I left no corner unturned. Nothing frightened me. A blind bird dashed its head against this closed window. I heard that. I crossed the open sea alone at night on a steamer. What was my name—I mean the name my mother gave to me—and where did I come from? My skin is now coarse. What pity. What sorrow. I have made a list. I have measured everything. I have not lied.
    But the light. What of the light?
    Splintered. Died.
    THE YARD
    A mountain. A valley. The shade. The sun.
    A streak of yellow rapidly conquering a streak of green. Blending and separating. Children are so quick: quick to laugh, quick to brand, quick to scorn, quick to lay claim to the open space.
    The thud of small feet running, running. A girl’s shriek—snaps in two. Tumbling, tumbling, the sound of a noon bell. Dry? Wet? Warm? Cold? Nothing is measured here.
    An old treasure rudely broken. See how the amber color fades from its rim. Now it is the home of something dark and moist. An ant walking on a sheet of tin laid bare to the sun—crumbles. But what is an ant? Secreting, secreting; always secreting. The skin of an orange—removed as if it had been a decorous and much-valued belt. A frog, beaded and creased, moldy and throbbing—no more than a single leap in a single day.
    (But at last, at last, to whom will this view belong? Will the hen, stripped of its flesh, its feathers scattered perhaps to the four corners of the earth, its bones molten and sterilized, one day speak? And what will it say? I was a hen? I had twelve chicks? One of my chicks, named Beryl, took a fall?)
    Many secrets are alive here. A sharp blow delivered quicker than an eye blink. A sparrow’s eggs. A pirate’s trunk. A fisherman’s catch. A tree, bearing fruits. A bullying boy’s marbles. All that used to be is alive here.
    Someone has piled up stones, making a small enclosure for a child’s garden, and planted a child’s flowers, bluebells. Yes, but a child is too quick, and the