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Barbara F. Lefcowitz |
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THE MAUVE SWEATER Mother, I keep that mauve shetland wool sweater in the back of a closet afraid to toss it out in case a sleeve escapes, becomes an Isadora Duncan scarf that winds too tightly around my neck How proud you must have felt when you looped the last intricate stitch laid out that sweater admiring its perfection after months of plying thick needles with your nervously delicate fingers. My favorite color, too: that sweater you made especially for me. But it never quite fit too heavy and too light too loose and too tight at the same time. Mother, nearly ten years gone: on this cold afternoon I feel more alone than I could possibly have imagined back when I craved nothing more than the greatest distance between us Might that sweater fit now that I'm nearly as old as you? I poke my fingers too awkward to dance through its lattice-work of loops stretch them open round gaps like portholes that reveal only spray and endless gray sea. BALCONY The movie's name I forget, the theater's name as well, though probably the Rialto or Kenmore on Flatbush and Church. But clearly I recall just where we sat high up in the balcony. I wore a tight maroon top, ribbed in front, with small nubs to guide his fingers when that miraculous moment arrived, so suddenly it startled both of us. The deeper his fingers reached downward the greater my sense time was ripe, if only to satisfy a curiosity felt more by my breasts than my brain. But it was the surprise the sheer surprise I recall more than a half century since how eagerly I welcomed his whole hand then the other as well, my demands rising high in the balcony's cathedral of darkness until my whole body shuddered in ways surely no one had felt before me. No wonder the screen remains blank as his name. Let me express my deep gratitude wherever he might be. Most movie theaters don't have balconies these days. |