The Bluebird Word

An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Month: July 2023 (Page 2 of 2)

Photo by Xander Ashwell on Unsplash

Beauty

5 July 2023 /

Fiction by Paul Hostovsky

The way her hands danced across the braille page, it was a beautiful choreography to behold. Her left hand beginning each line, handing it off to her right hand halfway across the page, the right hand finishing the line as the left moved down to begin reading the next line. Left hand to right hand to left hand to right hand. Expert, fleet, like a concert pianist, or like relay runners in a race, the handoff accomplished seamlessly over and over, line by line down the page, page by page through the book, book by book through his entire childhood.

There was never a time when he didn’t know it. He’d learned it with his ABCs, fingering the raised dots with his tiny hands, sitting in his mother’s lap as she read to him aloud from the print/braille children’s books while he looked at the pictures. B was but, C was can, D was do. M was more. M with a dot five in front was mother. White dots on a white page, but they cast these tiny shadows so he could see them in the light. Like a country of igloos as seen from an airplane on a sunny winter morning.

Having blind parents was as unremarkable as having breakfast in the kitchen, having mail in the mailbox, having rain on rainy days and sun in the summertime. Lending his mother or father his shoulder–his elbow as he grew taller–was like offering his arm to the sleeve of his own jacket, like giving his hand to his other hand. He thought nothing of it, didn’t even have a word for it until he started kindergarten and the word got spat on the ground by some ugly mouths on the playground, older boys snickering and pointing, mimicking his parents as they swept their white canes back and forth, back and forth. Click sweep, click sweep, click sweep.

Those white canes. At home they leaned quietly against the wall like backslashes in the unpunctuated dark. Or else they sat folded underneath a chair or table like bundles of long chalk, a red one in each. K was knowledge. P was people. And the braille dictionary in seventy-two volumes was stacked practically to the ceiling, like a cord of wood.

His mother would stop reading, open her watch then close it, click, reach under her chair for her cane and open it, chick-a-chick, into a white line which she swept across an invisible line which she walked, out the door and down the street to the grocery store. Q was quite, U was us.

Braille was dots in a cell, lots and lots of cells. Each cell was a three-story building at dusk, the lights on in certain windows, not others. Each book was a city, where he and his mother looked through the windows, their fingers pressed to the panes.

Outside it’s beginning to snow. And each snowflake is a different character in the Complete Works of Beauty, which contains no mistakes that he has ever been able to find. And he has looked—he has looked his whole life—but has never found a single mistake.

Paul Hostovsky makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter and Braille instructor. His latest book of poems is Pitching for the Apostates (forthcoming 2023, Kelsay Books). Website: paulhostovsky.com

black and white roller coaster
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Roller Coaster

3 July 2023 /

Nonfiction by Mary Zelinka

It’s 1973 and I’m working at the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Denver. I’m twenty-five and at the tail end of my marriage. Only one of our two cars runs at a time and my husband uses it. After we drop our four-year-old Bobby off at the sitter’s at 6:00 AM, he drives me to work. I’m always an hour early. I spend this hour in the bank cafeteria’s kitchen tagging after Velma and her twelve-inch beehive hairdo as she fixes me breakfast and spouts raunchy jokes. This is the best part of my day.

After work, I take the bus home. This is the worst part of my day. Crowds of people jostle for position – if you don’t make the first bus, which I rarely do – you have to wait twenty minutes for the next. Then I’m late picking Bobby up and we have to walk the mile home in the dark.

On this particular summer afternoon as I’m being shouldered about on the sidewalk, I hear a loud voice, thick with accent, “Vitch bus the Elitch Garden?  I must to ride famous roller coaster!” 

It’s sweltering hot, in the way heat beats down on a city. My thin cotton dress feels damp as my opponents for the first bus press close. But the louder the Voice grows, the wider the space between me and the crowd becomes. Finally, the Voice is right next to me, and, since I haven’t learned (will never learn, actually) not to make eye contact with anyone in the city, he is looking at me right in the eyes.

“Vitch bus the Elitch?  I must to ride roller coaster!” I look around at the other bus riders, but everyone keeps their gaze firmly fixed at some point far away.  I shake my head and shrug my shoulders at the man. 

Deep lines cut through his big square face, his smile wide. He laughs, a great booming laugh. And then, to my increasing anxiety, unbuttons the left cuff of his heavy long-sleeved shirt (how could he wear such a shirt on this hot day?) and begins rolling up his sleeve in an alarming manner. 

He flexes his bicep at me and laughs. “Russian!  Ninety years!  Strong!” Not sure of the proper behavior in this situation, I nod at him and smile. 

“I like you!” He’s no taller than I am, but he wraps his arms around me and lifts me off the sidewalk. He tosses me upwards a bit, the way you would a child, and then sets me down. My legs wobble. 

“I find the Elitch Garden! Ride roller coaster!” And he marches on down the street just as the first bus sighs to a stop. The crowd shoves past and I’m vaguely aware of the bus leaving without me as I stare after him.    

My husband and I divorce not long afterwards. He leaves me the car with the payments and my bus riding days come to an end.    

Six months later, I am downtown at night on a date. It’s late and has been snowing. The sidewalks are slick and Jack has his arm around me as we leave the restaurant. 

Suddenly a short square man marches up to us, stops, and peers into my face. “You!”  He laughs his booming laugh. “I find Elitch! Roller coaster fast!” I laugh with him, but I notice Jack takes his arm from around me and moves a half step away.

“Still strong!” The Russian flexes his bicep at me, thankfully leaving all his clothing securely buttoned. He wraps his arms around me and tosses me upwards. This time my legs do not wobble when he sets me down. He laughs and then marches off into the night.

I look up at Jack, thrilled that he witnessed this event. He had accused me of making the Russian up. 

His face has gone dark. 

Later I will realize Jack’s reaction accurately foretold my next four years. And by the time I escape him, this dark look has become normal.    

But in that moment, watching the Russian materialize through the snow, giant flakes clinging to his hair, his wide smile upon recognizing me, I am so taken with the magicalness of his existence I am filled with joy.

Mary Zelinka lives in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and has worked at the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence for almost 35 years. Her writing has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Brevity, and Multiplicity.

Photo of Father's Coat (courtesy of author)

My Father’s Coat, in Three Acts

1 July 2023 /

Nonfiction by Cheryl Sadowski

I.

How old am I—four? five? awaiting my father’s arrival. I stare out the picture window of our living room watching snow fall like feathers when his car rolls into the driveway. The door swings open, and my mother cheerfully calls out. I see my father’s face and run headlong into his herringbone coat: it smells of spice, wool, and winter. I huddle against his legs and look down at his shiny black shoes. Whether or not my father loves his herringbone coat, or even likes it, I cannot say. Only that it is his.

So called for its resemblance to fish bones, herringbone is an interlocking pattern of zig-zag lines known for strength and durability. Ancient Egyptians borrowed the design from nature for their jewelry. Romans laid roads in a herringbone pattern. Herringbone tweed began as a working man’s cloth, serious and sturdy, to guard against the damp climates of Scotland and England.

My father’s coat is classic herringbone, tightly woven, with woolen Vs in black and gray, and an expertly tailored, glossy black lining. A sewn-in patch indicates provenance: Diamond’s Store for Men, a sartorial staple for professional attire during the 1960s and 70s.

For years the coat hangs in our cramped foyer closet amid a cadre of more flamboyant jackets: my mother’s Christmas cloak, my younger brother’s recreational wear, my high school letter jacket with a giant green ‘M’ emblazoned on the breast. I catch a glimpse of herringbone pattern—steadfast, stoic—whenever I grab my own coat and run out the door.

II.

My father’s coat accompanies me to college in Wisconsin, though I have no memory of asking him if I could take it. I wear it walking to classes, laughing and kicking through snow drifts with friends on the way to Ivan’s Pizza. Wisconsin winters are stark and cold. The herringbone acts like armor, blunting the sharp winds.

The coat is too big for me, but when I pair it with black biker boots and patterned tights, I love the way it makes me feel: artistic, complicated, like Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club. It is a warm, woolen talisman, cloaking me after nasty rows with my boyfriend. When I wear the herringbone with a pink velvet scarf, I am La Boheme! conjugating French verbs while I walk … je travaille, tu travailles, il travaille.

I recall a scene from Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary: Emma Bovary, fresh from the winter air, lifts her hem to warm her foot by the fire, the allure and power of her well-revealed ankle. The hem of my father’s coat brushes over the tops of my boots when I walk. My calves are strong and young beneath its shelter. I saunter, sing-songing, insouciant, and free.

III.

It’s February. Seated on a cold, steel outdoor bench, I wait for the train. Beneath the elevated platform, office workers escape the manacles of cubicles and conference rooms. I, too, am tethered to the office, and to Chicago rents and utility bills. My father’s coat, now vintage, is admired by colleagues. 

Snow sifts down through the mesh muslin sky. I raise the crook of my elbow to my nose and breathe in deeply. The coat’s fibers are still coarse and sturdy, the herringbone pattern so close, familiar. But the memory is thin, a wavering white veil between myself and my childhood.

I can’t see my father’s face to know if he is happy or tired or anxious. I long for the smell of spice, wool, and winter. My black biker boots are long gone, and I have no idea what became of my pink velvet scarf.

I reach back to the classroom: Nous travaillons. We are working.

The train approaches, a rushing ribbon of herringbone on iron wheels, unspooling, unstoppable. I stare at the long track ahead. It bends around the corner and disappears into the distance. Briefcase in hand, I rise and brush the snow from my lap. For the first time I notice that my father’s coat is heavy.

Cheryl Sadowski writes essays and short fiction that explore the connections of everyday life with landscape, literature, art, and the natural world. Her writing appears in About Place Journal, Vita Poetica, Orchards Poetry Journal, EcoTheo Review, Broadkill Review, After the Art, and Bay to Ocean Journal. She lives in Northern Virginia.

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