Page 65 - WTPO Vol. VII #5

She settled herself near the malformed chimney, hunched slightly forward, her legs laid down either side of the roof’s awkward apex, Albert now a little more at ease in his bizarre confinement (she only brought him up to avoid having to hear his ceaseless barking, a guaranteed annoyance were he to be left down below), his dark eyes having already picked out the here and there motions over at the church, a sonorous gruff floating in the midpoint of his deep chest, where it stayed, roughly reverberating.
Helen spread her hands out over the rough tiles, feel- ing the sun, the ever present glorious sun, hanging right there above her, prickling her scalp, seeking out and warming the narrow slice of skin laid bare above the collar of her sweatshirt. The men worked and she watched, and now and then they turned to see her watching, and waved, and she waved right back. After a while she took out a cigarette and lighted it and gave Albert’s nose a tickle and drew in the mild autumn air, pulling it down deep into her being, and she thought about things. She thought about the church and what it would mean when it was gone, would another replace it? She thought about her mother’s voice, how sweet
it was on those Saturday mornings, and how it ended
so suddenly. She thought about her father and what he could be doing right at this moment. He had taken her once to work and shown her what he did there, so she could see him now, in his apron of rough heavy leather, kneeling at the frame of something huge and complex, his sad-looking face lost behind a dark, impenetrable shield; skill and technology bringing metal to other metal, bonding it with an arc of incredible heat and light. Her father putting things together, the men across the way, tearing them down. It was the way of all things, she thought, no matter what they were made of. She rubbed Albert’s head, blew a puff of smoke down to
her right, tapped the cigarette on the upturned edge of a twisted tile, and watched as the men moved, and the old condemned church began to groan.
James is an oddball British expat recently seen loping through the woods of Maine. When he’s not dissolving in the midst of a savage summer or fattening up for the next brutal winter, he’s writing poems and stories on the backs of unpaid utility bills and drinking too much dark ale. He has had words printed in many a magazine, and on a sober day can tell a hawk from a handsaw.
Pine
pine needles, copper, waxed linen thread, straight pins 3'' x 4'' By Jean Poythress Koon