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Ann Day
Poetry and
Watercolors
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Something shifts over our heads. Each in her own bed, my sister and I listen. Feet move now in the attic. Is it a trapped animal or a branch scratching across the window glass up there? We've spent all day packing up our mother's house, poking through drawers and trunks, throwing out her dresses, taking pots and pans to the Ladies Auxiliary or Red Cross. Each of us thought herself exhausted until we heard this furtive packer still working in the attic. Now alert, we cannot be sure it isn't the other, restless, going through old photgraphs under the splintery beams above. A floorboard squeaks and my sister whispers 'are you asleep" She stands in the doorway like a ghost, her nightie luminous in the moonlight. 'So it isn't you up there?' I ask. now we're both terrified and we hurry down and out the front door to stand on the path in bare feet, two middle-aged women with mussed hair and pale legs, listening for an intruder. Cold after fifteen minutes, one of calls the cops. We went to school in this village; boys we know, now in uniform, turn up to calm us. We're whispering at the foot of the stairs when they hear the noise and are suddenly alert. Guns drawn, they race to the attic. Doors slam. We hear shouted commands as trunk lids bang, boxes are shoved. Then, sheepish, they tell us no-one's there. We stand around outside with them as they smoke. They say it's nice to see us again after so long; no-one mentions our deshabille, our dirty feet, the curious circumstances of meeting like this. After they leave, we spend the rest of the night downstairs on the couch, feet on the upholstery, whispering. It's a good thing our mother can't see us. |
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| © 2009 Ann Day |