I’m standing in front of my mother, head tugged while she braids my hair as she does every morning. I am seven years old, she must be late 30s. Her lipstick is bright red, her hair nearly black. Taster’s Choice freeze-dried coffee in her cup, Cleveland news and weather on the radio. My baby brother bangs his spoon, smile-flinching each time it strikes. My sister and father are at the table, all of us unaware we’re in my dreamworld, unaware we are inexorably moving away from each other the way stars grow more distant. Stand still she says as she fastens a tiny rubber band at the bottom of each braid so I don’t turn around to hug her as I long to in my dream. I want to hang on for dear life as galaxies move apart ever faster in a universe widening toward absolute zero.
*
Greenlings
They spring out the door, compressed by inside rules: slow down, lower your voice, put away your toys. They whinny, canter, jump, barely able to keep to the confines of boots and coats. The desire to inhabit themselves is strong as a stream’s mandate to flow. In them I see once-wobbly foals grow into their knees, their power. Three children radiant as late winter light through eyelids I close for an in-breath’s cherishing. Their greenling calls stir the air, leaping beyond whatever holds them in.
*
Hang In There
Memory summons the third-grade classroom poster of a kitten, soft gray and white fur, front paws desperately clutching a rope. A silly font read Hang In There!
I tried to avoid looking at the wall at all because I couldn’t bear the kitten’s beseeching eyes, could feel its desperation in my stomach, my throat. It dangled over an abyss, its weary claws my hands.
Men in movies hung from building edges or helicopter skids. Any woman in the scene threw her hands over her mouth, helplessly pretty and pettable. In theaters, people clapped when the hero—against all odds— pulled himself up.*
I walk back in my mind to that classroom, find the poster tidy as the day it was tacked up, reach in, take that kitten into my nine-year-old arms where I feel its tiny heart flutter as it calms, finally, after all these years.
*Mythbusters episode 138 demonstrated some adults can hold on from a three inch ledge for only about one minute, less for a one inch ledge. Not one participant could pull themselves up.
*
Laura Grace Weldon lives in a township too tiny for traffic lights where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, serves as Braided Way editor, and chronically maxes out her library card. Laura was Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books.
