The Sleeping Wall

Jane M. Downs
Part Three
—
The child’s paper boat on the lake. Her mother beside her. The boat grows heavy
with water and stops. The child prays it will stay afloat, even though she knows it
won’t. If you hold a shell to your ears you can hear waves. If you hold your hands over
your ears you hear your own heart beat. The boat collapses. If she listens hard enough
she can hear her mother’s thoughts. The way her mind grinds out words.
1
—
James’s eyes are blue. The hard blue of diamonds, the blue of ice. He touches Medina
and the ice melts in her hand. He holds the hair back from her face. She didn’t know how
empty she’d been.
She leads him to the far shore. White birch like the long spines of the dead. Stone wall.
The shed damaged so long ago by fire. His hands all over her face. It is through her flesh
that her heart is pierced. He could kill her and leave her there.
He whisks the sheet from her mother’s piano and laughs to hear her play so out of tune.
They pick blueberries that she eats from his hand. All those empty upstairs rooms. He
says his sisters grew up while he was away. He says she has grown into her mother.
Bouquet of wild flowers, red wine, his college text he reads aloud. He plays Satie with
the hands of a somnambulist. She dances for him with languid, silky movements. “Come
here,” he says. His mouth open against hers. His hand burns her thigh. Afterwards, he
sweats as if he made love in a vortex of fire. They are yoked by flames. “Do you love me?
Do you?”
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