Morning in the Burbs

Rain or shine, goldfinches light up my day with their bubbly chatter. Unless they perceive a threat then they turn stone quiet. Early this morning the threat was a fat black bear hunched over the torn-down suet feeder. I led the cat to the window to witness, but apparently her neurons couldn’t process bear. She only wanted to sniff my buttered bagel and be brushed. I’m writing this not because I have anything deep to say, but come on—a bear on my front lawn! Also, the truth is, for a moment in those tricky morning shadows, I thought the bear was my neighbor, who's a survivalist of some sort and rather hairy. Grizzly Adams, we call him, though not to his face. On weekends he disappears into the mountains of New Hampshire and eats only things he kills or finds dead, or else beef jerky. The goldfinches fall silent fast when he’s out and about in the neighborhood. They hole up in my forsythia. Perfect camouflage. Once I asked him why he scares the birds and he said, What birds? I wouldn’t want to survive without birdsong. I even love the sorrowful coos of mourning doves at 6:00 AM. In no time, the bear devoured the glob of grease and seeds and waddled off through the neighbor’s yard, leaving behind a pile of scat. By then the cat had licked my bagel clean, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I knew shortly the forsythia would rustle and, one by one, bright goldfinches would rise.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 3, “Might Micros”. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Spells

On Christmas Eve as teens, we amble Georgetown’s lamplit streets, fingers linked, kissing, your upper lip prickly with that faint mustache some girls get. Your dad is a basement shut-in, a bald guy with myalgia. I had been sipping pink sherry at a gift exchange at my grandpa’s house, my crystal glass prisming the festive fir’s icicle lights into rainbows. Recrossing the tall arch bridge, I scale the patina green parapet rail. The steel chills my fingers as I teeter above the tree crowns, the void of the wide black river. Through those balusters, I ask you if I should do it. Not missing a beat, you snuff your cigarette cherry on my half-numb knuckle and a moment later, faint. I scramble back over and kneel beside you, jostling your limp shoulder. An ambulance slows. Driver says someone phoned in about a jumper. I play dumb and say you fainted. The medic loads you on a stretcher and we pull away as a news van arrives. You come to in a panic, demanding they let us off at the Metro stop. After your dad sends you to an all-girls boarding school on a distant river, we pen each other letters. Yours land in my mailbox, a mauve wax seal on the back flap. God, our paths cross decades after, you having refound religion among snake handlers, spirit talkers.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Number 3. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.