Making Something

An oldie, for JK. 

She is making me something.  

“Like the moon,” she says, her voice hopeful,

“so far the moon looks really good.”

I listen to her over the phone line,

her voice,

deeper than in person, and her small sighs,

“If nothing else at least you will have

this moon,“ eat up my

resolve until, finally,

“You don’t have to make me

anything,” I say, “I know you

still love me.”    

But she is an

artist, and telling her this

is like cutting a new vein, like

letting old passions fall into

the dirt. She would rather die, I

think, than ever

give up.

“I have seashells,” she tells me, and now

she pauses, her voice dropping, “but they

aren’t turning out.” And I imagine her

then:

Long brown hair hanging

into her eyes, the phone ringing on the floor

nearby, all the friends

calling

for her attention, but she

sits,

lips curled in concentration, fingers

full of chalk, and angry,

with an image burned into

her mind that will never

can never

be contained.

We talk awhile longer, the

tiger and the lily, the china and the

bull and when the moment grows quiet

I tell her I have something for

her.

“Is it an origami swan?” she asks, with a kind

laugh, an eight year old

girl turned twenty five, and I listen

as her words

take flight

for the next five minutes with

the memory of

origami and I’m

suddenly

surprised at how

badly I want it

all

to turn out.