Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Leslie St. John
This morning while it was still dark,
we got ready in the yoke-yellow
baby room. Sylvia leaned over the rail
of the crib, flattened her hand
on the empty mattress.
Fresh paint and two mimosas
made me slightly sick. I grin/grimaced
while Sylvia watched me shove
a second stick through my taut blond bun.
During three years of college dance
performances, she had shown me
how the pointed end enters first
through the bottom, then twists tightly
at the top. But I still don’t have the art
of piling and pinning. Such efficiency
in the graceful sweep, the functional bind.
Marriage—a synonym for “taking
a daughter-in-law”—to a restaurant,
a Candy Land golf course, a two-
bedroom house in Cabot, Arkansas.
Carrying my plain white plate
down the buffet line, I imagine
dipping asparagus in soy sauce,
brushing it across the ceramic surface:
a long thinning S for Sylvia’s arabesques,
a small knot for this day, a large bough
for her ancestors, a faint ring
around the rim for the baby warm
under her dress, carved within her.
Crab Orchard Review ◆ 185