amphibi.us

Elmo is fucking useless. He’s fallen on the floor again and stares up at me,
eyes agog.

Get up here! I say in my mind.

I don’t actually have the words yet to enunciate that sentiment out loud.
It’s odd. I get the words, I just can’t say them. I think they’ll come
eventually, maybe even soon. But for now, all I’m able to produce is a
strained, “Ehhh.”

Mommy looks at me in the rear view mirror.

“Elmo fall down?”

She talks to me like I’m an idiot but, in fairness, I can’t converse yet.
She takes care of me, feeds me, loves me. She picks Elmo up off the floor,
which is a full-time job because Elmo is a fucking spaz. I don’t have a
daddy, or a brother or sister. It’s just Mommy and me. That’s okay. She’s
all I need.

I let out another pained “Ehhh!” and then, despite my best intentions, I
begin to cry.

“Shhh-shhh,” coos Mommy. She starts to sing, “La-la, la-la…”

I join her. I can’t even say my name but somehow I manage to form the sounds
of “Elmo’s World.” It makes Mommy happy to sing it.

Her eyes are off the mirror and back on the road. The rain is getting
harder. This stretch has no street lights.

I think I liked it better when I rode backwards.

I love Mommy, but she’s kind of a klutz. We’re coming from the supermarket
where she just took out half a Velveeta display with a shopping cart. I’m
not sure how I feel about her steering five-thousand pounds of minivan
through a driving rain in the dark.

“La-la, la-la,” I keep singing and I can tell she’s smiling by the way her
cheek puffs out on the side.

Mommy slows the minivan.

A car is spun out on the road ahead, facing the wrong way.

The front door is open and there’s a figure lying still on the ground.

We’re alone out here.

We should go.

Mommy brings the minivan to a full stop. She looks back at me, big beautiful
almond eyes full of worry, and something else. Guilt? Sorrow? I’m not sure I
know what those things are yet, but I think that’s what I see on her face. I
don’t like the way they look on my mommy.

My eyes drift down to Elmo – useless prick! – flat on his back on the
floor, surrounded by my discarded juice boxes. He looks like he’s just come
off a cranberrylicious bender.

Mommy touches my chin. She lines her eyes up with mine and there’s absolute
reassurance.

“Mommy’ll be right back,” she says.

She opens the door just long enough to slip out. The falling rain is
deafening.

She looks around, like maybe we aren’t alone out here. She flicks her key
fob, locking all the minivan’s doors.

I watch her jog through the driving downpour, across the empty road. As she
moves, her body remembers. Short, choppy strides, become long and graceful.

She squats down to check the silent figure on the ground.

That’s when I see it.

It’s big and moving from behind the other car. It’s not a person. It’s
shadow and darkness. Cold. I get flashes of things I used to know, before I
was with Mommy, things from the beginning, things I’ll forget in a few
years.

I recognize the Cold Thing, or at least what it represents. I don’t think I
could put it into words even if I had them. Instead, I just scream bloody
murder.

Between the rain and the minivan’s soundproofing, there’s no hope in hell
that she’ll hear me. I watch, helpless, terrified, as the Cold Thing
moves around my mommy, stopping with its back to me.

I can’t see her.

There’s nothing worse than not being able to see your mommy.

I scream louder, harder.

The Cold Thing’s head swivels on its neck, facing me at an unholy angle.

It winks.

I think I’m going to pass out.

The Cold Thing rights its head and moves in on my mommy.

I want to pass out.

I flail and kick against the goddamn car seat. It’s useless. I’m useless.
She’s everything in the world to me and it’s going to take her.

There’s movement. A struggle.

Shit.

Did the Cold Thing just explode?

It’s gone, and all I see is my mommy lunging forward, her left fist cocked,
her right arm extended.  She’s holding a short, sharp piece of wood.

Surprise and relief.

Now, terror: the figure that was lying on the ground is standing behind
Mommy. It’s not alive either.

The New Thing lunges. Mommy dodges.

She leaps with the grace of a gymnast and pivots mid-air.

(The woman can’t parallel park!)

She lands a kick to the New Thing’s back, sending it sprawling on the wet
asphalt.

Mommy dives, her fist and the stick leading.  She finds her mark. The New
Thing explodes into the rain.

Mommy looks around again and I think this time she knows we’re alone. She
glides across the road, soft, confident loping strides.

She’s inside the van and all is right in the world. Her cheeks are flushed,
but she’s smiling. She picks Elmo up and stuffs the little red monster into
the side of my car seat. She wipes the drool from my chin and tells me it’s
okay.

Her eyes meet mine and her smile fades a little. I see those things again,
the ones I’m not sure I can name yet – sorrow? guilt?

She looks away from me and starts the car. Her eyes get wet.

“La-la, la-la,” I start to sing.

Mommy laughs a little as we pull back out onto the road.

© Mike Sweeney, 2010

[others]

Rosie was a mamas girl
and a papas girl
from a
family of
eight

sharp as a razor and
determined to win
everything;
tough as a bullwhip,
with her life in order and
healthy career goals
and
a good catholic upbringing

This was
before the rediscovery
of vileness and alcohol and
that cold words undress them better
than praise
but
I was drifting
in those directions
and my words already wore
the bullshitter’s mantle and the ribbed
condom (for pleasure) and the fool’s
hat and
my balls were dice
with one chance in 36 of getting laid

We met at the zoo, where the bars
kept her just out of reach
for my nihilist zebra
and my horny monkey
and the dingo that you cannot
train because it turns
on you
and she said:
‘Anton, you are full of shit’
and it meant
‘I get it, and maybe there’s love’

© Anton Gourman, 2010

[others]

In the Chinese restaurant
The chopsticks
Which sit upon the small piece of porcelain
Balance themselves
But their positions are slightly different
One is just in front of the other
and they swing
One fast
And one slow
The motion continues
The up
And the down
At different speeds.
Until
The sweet and sour arrives
And fingers gently stop
That perfect
Movement.

© Marc Carver, 2010

[others]

I want to be your yolk this time

the center of your universal

purulent bliss

but you denude my pleas

so I encircle you, sand

lurking about the edges

of your interior

ever since that white

shuttered day you insisted:

just tell me…

© Robert Vaughan, 2010

[others]

So, you resent my abusing you, as
you’re pleased to call it. I can understand.
It’s only natural. But try to see
things my way. There are times when loneliness
must be left alone in its loneliness,
when despair can bear only more despair
and not the cheery gossips who’d soften
its dull blows, naive friends asking how it goes,
extending empty hands half-heartedly.

Be fair. I never make you say “I’m
out at the moment” or “We’ll return your
call soon as we get back.” You tell no lies;
I’ve seen to that. Look there are whole days–
Groundhog for instance, New Year’s, the Third of
July, my birthday (yes, I know you know
them all)–days and even weeks when I
just can’t stand to talk. And yet there could be
an unignorable emergency,
some sudden cri de coeur that will chew
private needs to wads of selfishness.
Even the suicidal bow before
the catastrophes of happy people.
You–you’re a messenger not to be killed.

Yes, it’s a minor part: nothing to do,
just one dull line to say. How can I reply
when the point is not to? That at least your
role’s ambiguously artful? That its depth,
as is so often the case, lies in what’s
not said? Remember? The rest is silence.

Anyway, it’s your job. Yes, that’s trumps.
You protect as well as inform, baffle,
screen, run interference for me even
when I’m just squatting at midfield sucking
lemons. You’re my artillery:
There’s outgoing as well as incoming.
How can I put it? Bottom line is you’re
not there just to stop short those who call
but the ones who never, never will.

© Robert Wexelblatt, 2010