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aslanti have fallen in love with someone else's mother. on days when i do my banking and catch the 5:32 she boards. when this first happened we were both forced to the back of the bus by the commuter hoardes. she sat facing me in the aisle-facing seats. i read the paper and battled against the bus's gravity to cross my legs firmly and prevent my bag from toppling over. a great hairy man sat down next to her, with a stout carved walking stick in hand, amber and turquoise at his neck, requisite native american-with-wolves tshirt over his belly. a long curving even line of amber beads followed a groove in the wood. at the end of his stick was a fat rubber bulb, grimy and road-scuffed. the kind of pivot on the tips of crutches.
he opened a conversation talking about public transportation. she responded and they made small talk for the better part of fareless square to lake oswego while i half-listened in. she is tall, slim, with pretty honeyed hair, short straight and thick. a straight nose. she wears a scarf the way i wish i could or knew how. she is smoothly, normally calm.
we get off at the same stop, fumble for the same coins at the same bank of telephones. she hears me talk to my mother, as i ask for a ride up the hill. i go to sit down on a bench, out of earshot. then she's sitting on the bench, too. i'm staring out through the parking lot for my ride, she sits open-eyed and seems on the edge of saying something to me, but doesn't.
her ride arrives first, a tan cream four-door, a teenaged daughter who pulls into the parking spot slow and careful. she stands up as her daughter turns off the ignition. she calls out, "hey, cutie," as daughter gets out of the car.
"hi, mommy." it is not overly sweet or even fake, and i love the tone to their voices. "becky, sweetie," she begins, asking a question i do not hear as i blindly walk over to my own mother across the parking lot with the van. becky sweetie and mommy climb into their car, happy. i imagine briefly their clean home nestled somewhere up the hill from our older one, that maybe they pick up fresh fruit on the way, life smoothes its way forward for them.
this is a slow envy of her eyes and hair and voice; i wish she was my mother, so she could bequeath to me in her genes that voice, that tall grace.
he opened a conversation talking about public transportation. she responded and they made small talk for the better part of fareless square to lake oswego while i half-listened in. she is tall, slim, with pretty honeyed hair, short straight and thick. a straight nose. she wears a scarf the way i wish i could or knew how. she is smoothly, normally calm.
we get off at the same stop, fumble for the same coins at the same bank of telephones. she hears me talk to my mother, as i ask for a ride up the hill. i go to sit down on a bench, out of earshot. then she's sitting on the bench, too. i'm staring out through the parking lot for my ride, she sits open-eyed and seems on the edge of saying something to me, but doesn't.
her ride arrives first, a tan cream four-door, a teenaged daughter who pulls into the parking spot slow and careful. she stands up as her daughter turns off the ignition. she calls out, "hey, cutie," as daughter gets out of the car.
"hi, mommy." it is not overly sweet or even fake, and i love the tone to their voices. "becky, sweetie," she begins, asking a question i do not hear as i blindly walk over to my own mother across the parking lot with the van. becky sweetie and mommy climb into their car, happy. i imagine briefly their clean home nestled somewhere up the hill from our older one, that maybe they pick up fresh fruit on the way, life smoothes its way forward for them.
this is a slow envy of her eyes and hair and voice; i wish she was my mother, so she could bequeath to me in her genes that voice, that tall grace.
