Clarisse

(Found this album in the hall closet, empty, which felt rude, so I'm fixin' it. I'm writin' this while a pie bakes and you nap, so if my handwriting goes crooked halfway through, that's the pie's fault, or yours, dependin' on what you do when you wake up. There's a curly hair pressed between pages four and five as a bookmark. It's mine. You're welcome.)

— The Shed, Somewhere Ahead of Here —

This first one ain't a photo yet 'cause it ain't happened-turned-happened yet, time's funny like that, it's a pretzel and not a tree no matter what the schoolteacher says. But picture it: a shed. MY shed. Smells like sawdust and me, 'cause everything I own smells like me eventually, that's just physics. You're in there, sweatier than a preacher at a bake sale, twistin' copper pipes around an old icebox like you're makin' a still for liquor AND lightning. And I'm old in this one. Seventy-something. Hair silver, opinions louder, tits still mighty, gravity's a coward, it works slow. I brought you cookies while you built the damn fool thing and I said, "Sugar, if that contraption works, you come find me when I'm pretty." You laughed. I didn't. I meant it. That's the whole story right there in a shed. Everything else is just the shed echoing.

— The Fridge, In Transit —

Nobody photographed this on account of everybody involved was screaming, so use your imagination: my icebox, YOUR icebox, the ONE icebox, twice, don't think about it too hard, it bites; tearin' through time like a laundry chute full of Tuesdays. Copper pipes glowing cherry-red, the ticky box clicking so fast it sounded like applause, and blue light everywhere, the kind of blue they don't make crayons for. Decades went past the windows that weren't there. Somewhere in there was 1954 coming up fast, and somewhere in 1954 was me, twenty-two, hungry, and completely unaware that breakfast was about to fall out of the sky into my begonias. The shed took the hit. The shed always takes the hit. That shed is the most constant thing in this family and this family includes a paradox

— The Crater —

NOW we're in film. This one I remember like it was this morning, 'cause it was. There's a refrigerator door sticking up out of a smoking hole in my shed floor like a gravestone for soup, and there's a foot. Your foot. And then there's you, laid out in the dirt, singed and dazed and wearin' clothes from a store that won't exist for seventy years, and there's ME. Twenty-two, apron, nothin' under it because it was Tuesday and Tuesday's an anything-goes day, standin' over you with a plate of cookies I'd brought out for exactly zero good reasons. I opened that icebox door like it was a present. You looked up at me with one eye 'cause the other one had a shiner comin' in. And I said the truest thing anybody's ever said in this county: "Well. You're late for breakfast." I didn't know you yet. My body knew you first. My thighs went tingly before my brain finished the sentence. That's how family works, apparently. Loudly. And damp.

— The Doorstep —

Betty Culver across the street took this one through her kitchen window and I have decided to forgive her instead of throwin' a rock. That's me on my own front step, leanin' on the frame with one arm up, and honey, look at that pit. Dark, damp, steamin' in the mornin' air like a kettle with opinions. I didn't raise that arm for stretchin'. I raised it 'cause you were standin' on my porch smellin' like ozone and tomorrow, and I wanted your first clear memory of me to come through your nose. Worked, didn't it. You stood there while I welcomed you in,ibb.co↗and my nipples were doin' all the talkin' through the apron cotton, two dark thumbs pressin' out like they had somewhere to be. They did. They had a whole plan. The rest of me caught up about a week later.

— Breakfast —

This is the one where you fell in love, don't argue with me, I've seen the photo. Me at the stove, bacon spittin' in the cast iron, eggs crackin' one-handed, coffee percolatin' loud enough to cover up the sound of my thighs rubbin' together when I shift my weight. Apron. Just the apron. Yellow, so it matches the butter and my general mood. Every time I reached for a cabinet my whole back half went on display; ass like two church hams fightin' over a windowsill, the dark hedge peekin' out underneath like it's payin' rent too. I put your plate down and leaned in way closer than plates require, and my left tit rested on your shoulder for the entirety of the phrase "more coffee, sugar?" You poured the coffee with a hand that shook so bad the cup rattled like the ticky box. I count that as a compliment. I count everything as a compliment. It's a good system.

— The Car —

Market day. Look at me behind that wheel of the Packard. One wrist over the top of the steerin' wheel like I own the road, which I don't, but the road and I have an understandin'. And look at where my other hand is. That's right. On your thigh. This photo was taken by a startled milkman at a red light and I have also decided to forgive HIM. Now what the photo can't show you is the trip: how my hand started respectable, up by the knee, ladylike, church-approved. And how by the second mile it had migrated north with the slow, patient certainty of continental drift, fingers walkin', walkin', until I was parked at a stop sign with my pinky in territory that made you choke on a slurpee we did not purchase yet. "Just keepin' you from fallin' out," I said. Windows were up. You had both hands in your lap already. I know what I'm about, sugar.

— The Pool —

Saturday. The kiddie pool, on account of it's the only pool my thighs can't climb out of gracefully, and I've made peace with that. I'm laid out on a towel the size of a runabout, oiled up like a roast, sun hittin' all four seasons of me at once. Tits out and frolickin', that heavy soft sag pooled up under my arms, nipples pointin' at the sun like they're takin' a meetin'. And the neighbor husbands; honey, the neighbor husbands. Three of 'em found urgent reasons to inspect their own fences that day. Peeking like gophers. And me, I only had eyes for you, sweatin' over the lawnmower, and every time you glanced over I'd do a little adjustin' of the bikini bottoms so the hedge showed just a little more. Mrs. Henderson brought me lemonade and a pamphlet about decency. I used the pamphlet to blot my cleavage. It's in the scrapbook too, page nine.

— The Dance —

The radio did it. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Some slow, dirty saxophone number came on while I was dustin', and dustin' became dancin', and dancin' became the thing this photo barely survived. Me in the livin' room, hips goin' in circles that ought to require a permit, this big soft body movin' slow and heavy like a ship comin' into harbor on purpose. Tits swingin' side to side with each turn, that ponderous sway, thump-thump, like a heartbeat wearin' a dress. Arms up, pits out, sweat flyin' off the dark curls in little musky diamonds. And you, sat on the couch, frozen, holdin' a lemonade like it was the last one on earth, watchin' me the way a man watches a storm he's decided to walk into. That's the night the Love dial jumped, sugar. I don't know what your future machines measure. My machine measures how long you forget to blink. That night was forty seconds.