Certainly it was possible—somewhere
in my parents’ genes the recessive traits
that might have given me a different look:
not attached earlobes or my father’s green eyes,
but another hair color—gentleman-preferred,
have-more-fun blond. And with my skin color,
like a good tan—an even mix of my parents’—
I could have passed for white.
When on Christmas day I woke to find
a blond wig, a pink sequined tutu,
and a blond ballerina doll, nearly tall as me,
I didn’t know how to ask, nor that it mattered,
if there’d been a brown version. This was years before
my grandmother nestled the dark baby
into our crèche, years before I’d understand it
as primer for Mississippi childhood.
Instead, I pranced around our living room
in a whirl of possibility, my parents looking on
at their suddenly strange child. In the photograph
my mother took, my father—almost
out of the frame—looks on as Joseph must have
at the miraculous birth: I’m in the foreground—
my blond wig a shining halo, a newborn likeness
to the child that chance, the long odds,
might have brought.
Improvisation:
Both my parents believed, that at the age
of two, I somehow wouldn't notice broken
bottles, unzipped zippers, and my father walking
wobbly like his toddler, as if all high school
flings lead to pregnancy and pressured
marriage, honeymooning in shouts of slurred
furry; then homing together, even trying out the frying
pan for the first time (a wedding gift from crazy aunt Brenda
who swears men are pecker-heads), mom swinging
so that the weight spins her body back around and just in
time to see dad fall, later to say thanks for the present, works
like a charm.
Both my parents prayed, that at the age of six, six-
teen, every year after and in between, I would stop
growing more into them, that my big-blues might change
to soft brown, browning the blonde tint in my hair, that two
stilted bird-legs turn stumpy with an overdose of chocolate,
said to stunt children. Certainly it was possible to remake
me with dyes and sugars and clothes and new parents with
new homes. Certainly it was possible.
Very, very interesting. I like this one a lot.
ReplyDeleteNow, I wonder about the “age of two” bit. I don’t think I remember much from the age of two. And scientists say if you think you remember stuff from the age of two, it’s actually just a memory your brain has constructed from thirdhand accounts (or so I’ve heard from a guy who heard from a guy). I’m probably just being pedantic, but you may want to adjust the age a little bit for suspension of disbelief. Point is, I think it might be a little too young. Your call.
The frying pan bit is ace—the image of the mother swinging it around with her whole body to strike the father is well-written and nicely cinematic. So is the little parenthetical aside which – if, for some unfathomable reason, you decide not to use it in this draft (as these things go), then at least keep it for later. Or let me steal it. Something.
“honeymooning in shouts of slurred / furry” – I think you mean either “flurry” or “fury.”
Perhaps with “dyes and sugars” you could tell me a specific sugar or candy. And when we get to “new parents with new homes” I wanted something a little more unsuspected. I really enjoy the last stanza, but somehow, I feel there could be more there. Maybe try expanding just a tad on the speaker’s resemblance to the parents – maybe in personality, to go with the physical characteristics. I know a lot of parents fear less that their kids will look like them and more that their kids will make their mistakes.