The Sleeping Wall

The Sleeping Wall
Summer rain. Swarming bees, a flying carpet of brown that bristles and dips over the lawn. A
dark upwelling of dropping bodies.
She smiles if I make a mistake and guides my finger to the correct key. Eyes like black glass. I
lean my head against her shoulder.
Father is late. Mother will play the piano when he enters, coat thrown over his arm. She will
ignore him when he kisses the place on her neck beneath her chignon and whispers her name.
Ignore the sound of ice cubes dropping into his glass.
I am a girl who steps and turns a hundred times without getting dizzy. I am the vortex of my red
skirt. The cut of red against white walls.
In bed, I see myself through the wrong end of a telescope. My image gets smaller and smaller
until I am a black spot in a tiny round lens. The dog scratches at my door. I do not blink or move
a finger.
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Lilacs everywhere and buds broken into green. Turn the corner, cross the street. Pass the low
brick wall. The closer Medina gets to home the more she is lost.
From the front steps, her mother’s music streams through the open window. Discordant and
rude. Notes like broken words. Notes like the sounds of enraged birds.
Up the stairs, past bookcases, cupboards, to her mother’s closet. She is smaller here, dwarfed by
the satin gowns fluffed out with tissue paper, held in plastic bags.
Music rises through floorboards. She opens the turquoise jewelry box. Each ring in its own slot.
Earrings paired in rows. Charm bracelet coiled and still. Between the tiny harp and bell an
empty loop.
Her stomach hurts. She swallows bile, slides the bracelet into the toe of a black high-heeled shoe.
The slammed bedroom door. La-la-la. Her mother sings the broken melody. Quiet as a lamb,
Medina holds her breath until she thinks she will die. La-la-la. She prays for the Virgin’s voice
to fill her.
Through a crack in the door, she sees her mother’s feet in high heels pace and pace. The phone
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