On the Edge

On the edge, toes curled, she really didn't want to go there not ever, not once when he told her if she didn't she was nothing but a big chicken butt and she knew she wasn't a chicken butt but even so she was afraid of the diving board--she was afraid of diving backwards, afraid of not seeing and not hearing and losing herself in the air on the way down and she couldn't see how far down because she would be backwards and her eyes would be scrunched so tight because if she scrunched them tight enough maybe she wouldn't hear her heart thump thump thrump through her head to her earlobes and maybe she wouldn't notice that her lungs had stopped pulsing, that there was no air pumping in and out anymore, that everything was just paused like a photo, paused in the between spot, between the edge and the water.

Woman Writers' New Year's Resolution---Musical Prompt

In two thousand eleven I could go to heaven.

So, in two thousand ten I'll pick up my pen. Again.

And again and again and again and again. And Again.

And again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

And then, I'll pick up my pen again. And again and again and again and

Again and again. And again. And again.

In two thousand eleven you might go to heaven.

So pick up your pen. Now.

In two thousand twelve the Aztec calendar will end.

Another reason to pick up your pen.

In twenty thirteen, write where you've been.

Write what you've seen

And in two-oh-one four

Just write some more.

Collective Sonnet

In a shower of a sunny day
A bee alighted upon my arm
I had to test the warmth of May
And see if kind bees live at the farm

I bent down close with a whisper
Asked the bee of his need
He said he longed for his sister
It's her he wants to feed.

Entangled in the family life of bees
Surprised my sunny shower
I laughed and tickled his knees
He stretched with new found power

"Brothers, sisters, and love for friend
Life is about what we mend."

Another Collective Sonnet by the Friday Morning Ladies

Oh lick! And shout! And lick! And shout! And lick!
Oh water my garden and eat my apple core.
Squeze and push and grab and kick,
Take all there is and want some more.

Trundle off sated, sedated, dazed,
Burrow into the comfort of down.
Bundle up warm, a comforting haze,
Curl around a new lover found.

Drive on through the snow, it sparkles like stars,
Her wet cherry red lips, the color of mars.
You've loved her so long, watched from afar,
Now tenderly yours, how utterly bizarre.

Sink deep into fresh love - a fantasy in real,
And prepare for the imminent break of the deal.

Collective Sonnet

I will hand deliver you the moon

Ship it wrapped in silken hugs

Hold your breath, it will happen soon

And I will bring you liquid sunshine in jugs

For you, my dear, are the world to me.

And I cherish you as I do life.

I'll hold you lightly so you'll always be free

And do my best to banish any strife.

Silken hugs and poetry for hours

I want to tickle all your many senses.

With wine and chocolate and fragrant flowers

Smash all barriers! Burn your fences!

But with romantic liaisons comes strife.

I'll keep my solitary life.

Collaborative Sonnet

Note: I've indicated the changes in writer with the font changes below.

The crown of fire pulled her on
She grabbed her stick and moved
Her flame tiara was like a dawn
Shouting out that she was proved
That she was valued, honest, pure
And should no longer have to endure
The harshness of the world
She could remain a sweet and innocent girl
And sing and dance and skip and play
And awake sweetly for yet another beautiful day
"So hark, oh crown of fire, heed what I say!
A phoenix I am, not a lump of clay!"
Honest, pure and valient I shall be
With my passion make a tempest of the sea!"

Collective Collaborative Sonnet

She was a bride whose soul was shrinking.
The magnificent sunset of gold-orange left her feeling flat.
She pondered what it was she had been thinking
To marry a man who always dressed like that!
She chided herself-- so petty! So particular!
Why did she care what the poor man wore!
His sex appeal was more vehicular
the Mercedes coupe was a 4-door
His nose hair was a distraction
but knowing the Berkshires, a plus.
His invention of a new contraption,
and his large bank account a major bonus.
For lack of better choices, he'd do
Whatever the girl wanted him to

Collaborative Sonnet
Nov. 20, 2009

I watch the hands of the clock go round
Touching each number, counting
The sound of each tick, tocking a new second found
Crouching in memories, of doing this rounding
Silver lilies breaking through the frost
Dripping blood puddles on the floor
There he lies his hands still crossed
His life brutally ended - his pain no more
And buried beneath this red strained corpse
an envelope stained red and crumpled in half
No one will know, now of course
What led him down this path
Only the frosted lilies know
Why, oh why, he chose to go.

The Winter Walk

The Winter Walk

The clouds were misty and just out of reach over my head, and there was a ribbon of sand between the snow covered beach and the quiet, slush fringed river. Our dog, returning to her puppy-hood was running and circus jumping through the snow drifts, over the hidden slopes and rocks, then racing back across the empty strip of sand and into the warm river, to bark euphorically and begin all over again. Her black tail bobbed and rose, over each snowdrift, a bouncing flag commanding joy. My husband and I walked along slowly, watching her play, sometimes making footprints in the four inch deep snow, and sometimes on the pebbly grains, the three of us alone with the winter weekday Sauvie Island emptiness. Other familes were perhaps snug at their kitchen tables or cozy before their fires, but we faced into the frosty air and journeyed, hugging our back-packed picnics close, stopping to gaze into the mythical gray distance of the vanishing Columbia River. The familiar landmarks on the beach were hard to recognize beneath the blanket of bridal white, but the heaps of tiny crystals did not quite cloak the painful memories of that shore. The snow, like the veil of time, could only partly cover the sadness of past picnics and the absence of one dear picnicker. It was his childlike smile that still came unbidden to my mind, my big-sister eyes loving him as he toddled on another beach, so many years ago. But it was his man laugh that suddenly came into my inner ear, making me smile, before the crushing scenes of his last days turned my smile down. He would have loved to be here on that day, making footprints, sharing a little fire of twigs, throwing a stick for our dog. She loved that picnicker, too.
We found no remnants of other travelers that afternoon, except the chattering noises of the forest creatures, celebrating the space between the storms. Later, as we sat on a brushed off log, eating dark chocolate to spice the hushing cold, a blue heron rose and soared across our perch: elegant and graceful, a vision against a leaden sky. Like the snowy beach, its beauty caught our breath; until its harsh and bitter cry rent the freezing air.

Collaborative Sonnet

Collective Sonnet
November 20th, 2009

The winter branch hides
Wings too big to hold
I find my heart rides
My wings make me bold
My song fills my throat
My feathers brilliant down
I shake my down coat
Look toward the sky and frown
A storm is brewing
The wind forceful and strong
I find my weariness accruing
My resistance stretching overlong
I bundle myself inside these wings
And pray welcome to what storm may bring

Collaborative Sonnet I

Dancing shadows of leaves grace the windows,
The light blinking and waving.
Outside the maiden can hear the cows' bellows,
Can see the path, away paving.

She touches the doorknob, her hand trembling
Heart quick and sputtering.
Her feet take off to running,
Her mind muddy muttering

Down the path and past the cows.
She dances out to the shadows.
Her joyous moves arouse.
Methinks she is quite mad, though

Happy mad and madly happy.
This is what makes spring so sappy.

Animal Medicine Card Prompt

Of two minds, Rudie was a conundrum. Sweet Blackbird, mama's boy, played beneath the starlit sky. Hopped along the grassy banks, perched high in the cherry tree, swinging his legs and sending white blossoms down like snow. He was his mother's delight.

She made the cave which was most of their home warm and inviting. Rudie was free as a squirrel; played all day into the night, then crawled in between blankets and furs to sleep soundly. Simple boy. Simple Blackbird boy sleeping soundly. Soundly sleeping, this sweet Mama's boy, tucked snug inside cozy cave, his mother humming.

Dreamtime was not so kindly to Rudie. Inside his mind was bleakness and malice of every kind. Inside, behind closed eyes, below his boy smile, demons sought entry and gained access to his tenderness. Rudie was a Blackbird in his dreams, flying over field, tree top, brook. He'd wave to his mother far below, she'd squint her eyes as though looking at the sun, fear upon her face, and go inside.

Blackbird Rudie boy was terrorized by the deeds he did in his sleep. Dragon claws on his hands sliced tender creatures, his mouth of fire brought destruction when he tried to speak. Locked inside this dragon form, his mother fled, the small animals ducked underground afraid of his willful violence.

The Horse Accident

Prompt: Guilt

I was the archetypal horse-obsessed girl. I read every horse book in the library, had armies of model horses lined up across the shelves of my bedroom, made bridles from shoestring and jump ropes. When I was 14 my parents finally got me a horse, a tall bay mare we paid $500 for. I was to share the horse with my older sister, but she didn't feel it the way I did and was not a particularly skilled rider, not ever very confident or comfortable. We boarded the horse up the road at a ranch run by a stringy cowboy named Bill. A blind woman named Diane also lived there. My dad had represented her in a lawsuit. She had been kicked in the head by a horse as a child and lost her sight. She was a skilled horsewoman and trainer and rode her tall paint gelding all over the countryside even though she couldn't see a thing. Her relationship with the cowboy who owned the ramshackle place was unclear and seemed sketchy even to my 14 year-old eye. Attached to the decaying red barn was an outdoor riding arena, dusty and bare, baked hard as concrete in the summer heat. One day my sister and I were at the barn and took the horse into the arena to ride. Rather than put on a proper saddle and bridle I made a makeshift hackamore out of rope and climbed on bareback. When it was my sister’s turn I boosted her up. Her uncertainty and lack of confidence was immediately evident to the mare. She bolted away across the hard-packed arena, my sister bouncing unbalanced on her back. As if in slow motion I saw my sister fly off and land on her head on the ground. I ran to her side to find her barely conscious, moaning and rolling slowly in the dirt. She turned her head and there was blood in her ear. I screamed for help and Diane came running blindly across the yard. I told her my sister had fallen. She went directly to the horse to find my inadequate homemade bridle. It was instantly clear it was my fault that we had had no control when our mare bolted. My parents were called. Soon thereafter an ambulance roared down the road, lights flashing and circling in the dust. My grandfather wanted to get a gun and shoot the horse dead on the spot. To this day I feel bad about being more worried about that than about the fate of my sister.

Prompt - Lost & Found

Lost and found, like a box under the desk at the office, full of children's coats and mittens, all unmatched of course. Like the woman who sists there, her legs tucked under the desk that hides the box. She is the gaurdian of lost things. When a child comes in, like with his mother standing annoyed and impatient behind him, but also with that look I am teaching you a lesson here, the woman, the guardian takes out the box, reaching down past her pantyhosed legs to her boxy, comfortable shoes. She takes out the box and goes through it with the boy. What color did you say that hat was, hon? Red? Is this it? Often she was the reuniter. Often she bore the sad news.
Maybe you left it on the bus? You could ask your bus driver. Which do your ride? The Thumpuer bus? Well, you ask Mrs. Peters, dear. Maybe she's seen it.
And, always, the child looked dejected. Even if they refused to wear the hat which is why it was lost as the mother reminds him as they leave the office.
Carol is always sad after these encounters. She wants to run after the boy, take his soft, warm hand in hers and say: Child, you will lose many things. There will not always be a box to come looking in. Hold tight to the things that matter.
But the mothers are there, their impatient, efficient heels clicking down the hallway.
Instead, Carol pulls out her calendar and flips the pages backwards and tries to remember what she's misplaced.

Oct. 30, Alida's Friday morning workshop

Prompt - FROG

Frog. Prince. Frog. Prince. Frog. Prince.

When you're young it's possible to love someone madly one day --- he's a prince! And to despise him the next --- the toad. Ideally your man will become a frog prince. Not because he's been transformed with a kiss and some careful instruction into what you want him to be or think he should be. But because you have learned to see him in his entirety. As a frog prince ---

warts and all.

Prompt: Lost and Found

"I once was lost but now I'm found," Carla sang, not loudly, at the back of the church. She stopped, let her mind travel from Uncle Bob's funeral. She thought about God's Lost and Found, wondered if He had a big box sitting next to Heaven's door, a box full of things people had forgotten, had left behind. What would you find there? Lost souls, of course. She imagined these must look like Peter Pan's shadow: flat and flimsy as silk, easy enough to scrape apart from a body, and then there's no telling whose is which. What would happen, she wondered, if somebody accidentally picked up someone else's soul, didn't realize it, just draped it on and went on living. Of course if you took someone else's soul on purpose, that's different. Of course you'd go straight to hell. But what if it was an honest mistake?

Carla looked down at her scrawny body, covered in black out of respect for her dead uncle. She wondered if this was really her own soul, or if a wild wind one night had blown hers off and down the road, if that wind had slammed her neighbor's soul right into her insides while she dreamed at night. Maybe that explained her naughty thoughts. Maybe that explained her confusion.

--Alida Thacher

Prompt- Most Scary Experiences

Laurel Canyon. Just the place itself -it's full of history, myth, legends, stories. And right across from the old Houdini mansion, right off Lookout Mountain- was the house. It was owned by an old man-Parker Cole, who let all us Hollywood juvenile delinquents hang out there. We called it Cole's Hole or just Parker's. I'd always wanted to live up there. And now, just a year or two after I would have graduated, we had the opportunity to rent it for like- nothing. It was up a winding, dark path. Not really a street and the path was filled with rocks and stones planted by a mean old woman-the only other person who lived on the path. It wound around 'til there was about a thirty foot drop right onto Laurel Canyon Blvd. No fence, no lights, it was perfect. We moved right in- me, my two best friends and my boyfriend. And found that we had roommates. A young boy named Craig and his boyfriend, a very clean cut ex-marine. Very straight looking, kinda scary.

The house was huge, log cabin style, stone fireplaces-all wood. At least 5 bedrooms. Craig's boyfriend was apparently suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and he had a gun with a bayonet. Craig didn't seem in the least bit fazed......

Herbs and Salt - Adolescence

Sam tugged the edges of her blue, one-piece bathing suit down a little farther to cover her butt cheeks and smoothly rolled over onto her stomach. Her red Coca-cola beach towel was hot and rough against her cheek and through it she could feel the prickle of the grass against her sun-tender skin. It was the height of summer; one of those long, lazy days where there's nowhere to be and it doesn't matter what time it is.

The muggy air seemed to cover her like a blanket, and she felt a little surge of joy at being comfortable outside with naked limbs. The still, summer air was so close to her body temperature that it almost felt like part of her. She flexed her hands and feet for a moment just to feel the distinction between herself and her environment.

A neighbor was running a sprinkler, and the steady chick-chick sound coupled with the heat was making her drowsy. She began to wonder if Marcus would call her tonight and whether they'd have another chance to go to the beach together this summer. She thought for a moment about his lanky brown hair, how the fuzz in the middle of his chest smelled like herbs - clean and spicy, and the salty taste and softness of his lips. Sighing she turned her head, aware that the towel had likely carved a pattern into the side of her face.

Prompt: A Compass

It was dark enough now that sight was irrelevant, probably inhibiting because she was trying to see, putting so much effort into willing to see what was in front of her that she was ignoring her other senses. This was dangerous, for smell, touch, hearing, these were things that could help her. The compass had long since failed her, or her it. It was trying to tell her where to go she was just too inexperienced and scared to understand. As the dark pressed in making her eyes ache she had the wisdom to simply shut them. Shut them and rely on other things. The sound of water bubbling over rocks, that was to her right, the bird to the left, the rustling behind. Or was the water on the left? It seemed like the harder she tried to make out where sounds were coming from the more impossible it was to determine. She started breathing more quickly now, just a bit, and once that seemed OK, once she convinced herself she wasn't panicking, her breath came quicker still. The ground beneath her feet rose and fell unevenly. What in the daylight were irregularities on the path became mountains and valleys. She stumbled, started to reach out to grab something but thought the better of it. Was this a joke? Was this really happening to her? It was cold and she was sure she was no longer on the path, but she could hear the water. The water. Keep following the water.

Water of Love

Alida Thacher's Erotica Workshop

I swim with you in the dark water,

entwined,

sliding beneath the waves,

drowning.

I love you in the steaming water,

moisture like glass beads,

floating in shadow,

slippery as a seal.

I love you in the alley rain,

face to the wall,

teeth to the brick

your words like a dark river.

I love you eye to eye, thirsty,

breath the hot liquor, the water of love.

The Cold Winter has Come

The cold winter has come.
Rose hips red, bejeweled,
dip in the wind, blood on snow.
Firs dark on white
cast snowy mist upon the wind and
icy panes, crystal ticking glass
in the morning light.
Deer step lightly through the frost.
Birds press shoulder to shoulder on the wire.
But you are warm my love,
breath on my ear,
your whisper.
Your heart at my breast,
the hot blood,
my lips at your brow,
enfolded against the winter's cold.

By Amy Holmes Hehn

Jennifer's Thursday Evening Group
Short free-write


FALL

Autumn light angles amber through the blinds,
striping rumpled sheets,
warming floor for dozing cat blinking, stretching,
dust drifting like snow.

Autumn light on entangled limbs,
dozing,
quiet breathing,
sounds of passing cars and mowing lawns,
goldfinch busy in the turning leaves.

Afternoon light the color of change,
the great wheel turning
garden fading, resting the eye,
your hand in mine, heart beneath my ear,
summer winding down like an old clock.

By Amy Holmes Hehn

Girlfriends

On a dark and stormy night, back when the market was screaming hot (so I frequently worked into the evening), I ducked in to Sungari Pearl to order Chinese takeout. A while-you-wait Grey Goose martini with olives and a twist seemed like a good idea too. There was one other woman at the bar, but the tables were all full.
My girlfriend lived across the street. I could see her office light glowing in her third floor condo and I decided to give her a call to join me in that Martini. I dug for my cell phone in the pockets of my bag. “I’m across the street at the bar in Sungari Pearl. Come over as you are; there’s no one here who cares. I’ll have a perfect Martini waiting for you in three minutes.”
As I tossed my phone back into the abyss of my working shoulder bag, I felt the woman on the next stool considering me. Turning, I said hello in a friendly way. “I can’t believe you could just dial the phone number of a friend from memory!” she said. And then, “I don’t know anyone’s phone number by heart; just my home number.”
I smiled at her. This I know for sure. You have to have a few phone numbers that you know by heart, and one of the most important ones is for your best girlfriend. You might have an emergency broken heart, or you might need advice on whether or not to spend a third of your next commission check on a single pair of shoes with heels so high you can’t walk in them. Someone in your family might have died, your dog might be diagnosed with cancer or for that matter, you might need a friend to pick you up from your doctor’s office after some really unsettling news. Your best girlfriend is who you call for a quick drink, no agenda. She is the one who, in thirty minutes, can listen to your worries, give you her worries in return, tell you not to spend that money or to go ahead and blow your entire wad on something totally decadent. She will invite you to a meet up at the art museum, remember your special color of lipstick and call you when she sees it in the gift with purchase bag at Saks. Your best girlfriend sends you clippings from “O” that laugh at your on line dating experiences, and comics from the New Yorker that remind her of the road trip you took last summer. Your best girlfriend knows who your children are, and how to interpret the ultimatums from your daughter or a loan to your son.
Just then my girlfriend blew in from the cold and settled on her own barstool. She thanked me for the drink and scanned the bar for someone she might know, or someone she might want to know. And then, we did what girlfriends do. We laughed and talked and enjoyed our drinks, and thirty minutes later, we split the bill down the middle and waved good bye. The woman at the bar was still considering. I think she was concentrating on improving her memory.

Musical Prompt: Bela Fleck, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo

Sneaking behind pillars in a camel-colored trench coat, collar up, tan brimmed hat down over his eyes, Mr. Sasso stalked Mrs. Bettle. He knew she did not have his best interests at heart. He had overheard her in the telephone booth, speaking in Finnish--which he just happened to speak--telling Rosco she would meet him ten minutes after sunset at the beach. She would be sipping absinthe in a red-feathered hat.

Who was Roscoe? Mr. Sasso wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he suspected he was the jeweler. There were rumors of some hot rubies entering the market last week, and corresponding rumors that the prince was a few jewels short of a crown.

How did Mrs. Bettle fit in? She always seemed to have her long gloved delicate fingers into everything nefarious in this town. How she stayed out of prison had everything to do with her Olympic gold medal in fencing.

Men were fascinated by her biceps, her triceps, the rhythmic sway of her hips. The government felt an enormous debt to her for putting their little country into six billion livingrooms during last year's games in Madrid. For this, she expected protection for life, and if there was ever any question, her stilletto was still razor sharp, her perry quick and fearless, her lunge silent and deadly.

But how Mr. Sasso got into the espionage business was frankly a much more interesting story....

Alida Thacher, Friday Mornings, Summer 09

The Ordinary Day
by Gayle Seely

It is an ordinary day today. Tomorrow will be much the same as today. Here in my everyday life in the northwest it is all about the usual getting up early, in time to review the homework before class, and then getting into my too-large car and rolling down the too-steep driveway to the not-so-quiet suburban street that is usually wet, not looking up at the house that needs painting and the gutters that need cleaning out, aiming towards the major road at the edge of my area that will take me past the large empty park and the complexes of office buildings that are half vacant, though you can’t tell unless you look closely, and out onto the thoroughfare of Cornell Avenue, which my neighbor tells me was recently widened but this is hard to believe because the traffic still creeps along until 185th, and then I go over the 26 freeway, looking down at the flow of cars heading towards the beach, which is only an hour and half from here and I could go that way and skip class, could skip the whole day, could stay down there and walk on the beach but it wouldn’t be any fun without my dog, who is at home in the kitchen with my husband and was sitting and watching me with sad eyes as I left yet again, was probably wondering if I was going someplace with good sniffs and not remembering her, but I DO remember her as I slide into my parking place at Rock Creek and rush to the business office to pick up my parking permit that I should have come over and gotten last Friday but I was too lazy or too tired, most likely because my sister came down from Seattle and we sat up and talked until late and then I could not sleep even though I only drank water, but just lay there in the dark as so many memories came shoving back up into my brain that I had to take each one of them and look at it, and soothe it, and put it aside, put it away, back down where it belongs, and then I began to feel less sad, and finally I wiped my tears for the last time and looked at the crazy stupid clock which read 2:50 a.m. and turned my pillow over to the dry side and finally went to sleep.
I get to my Spanish class early and sit near the man who is here from Arizona for only a few months until he can go back and who aches from our cold weather that is the first hint of global cooling – no, not global warming – that the NASA scientists and the veteran predictors at Farmers Almanac have recently decided to believe. He is a nice man and he has lost his acceptance of the cold, which is perhaps the best kind of protection against it. In Spanish we get to go around the classroom and describe ourselves and I get to say I am ‘vieja’, which is old, and ‘gordita’, which is plump, and some classmates laugh and I am glad because I am happy to be here, old and plump, and not young and stupid with all those hard years ahead of me. The teacher does not ask us to describe our joy or our sadness or even our money worry and that is good because I do not have the vocabulary, the ‘vocabular util’ in Spanish, to tell about these things: not in Spanish, not in English, maybe not in any words.
But on the way home from class as I cross back over Highway 26 the sky has opened and the clouds have slid to the sides like the drapes on a theatre stage and the sun begins to shine down its slowly warming light and the blossoming trees come into bright focus: kinds and kinds of pinks, like babies fingers, and puppies noses, and the colors of dresses of little Mexican girls going to a Posada. And there are whites too, fluffy outlines which are lacy if you stop under them and look up after you have parallel parked your car, and the tiny flower fragments fall onto the closed sunroof and you can imagine them swirling up and behind you as you drive away, like a stream of fragrant snowflakes, a fragile proof of life that is such a strong contrast to the fortress-like structure of my steel, air-bagged, anti-lock braked, officially safe, road-warrior car. And it comes to me as I cruise through the flurries of petals that long after this vehicle and I are rust and dust, these fragile petals will come back again and again to cover the landscape with spring.

Thieves

There are two
No, more than two: three at least and maybe four
Not four, we would have noticed,
heard them
heard them at the car doors
heard their breath when they were searching.
We were blindfolded at the same time--I watched your face--
Black gloved hands
Other hands pulled at the upholstery
Under your seat, too
I don't know
You do think
Yes,
yes I felt them, their hands between my knees I thought--
They found it.
I don't know
You do
Yes
It's over then.

Our beach house at Hatteras: the hurricane Andrew?
Hugo
The windows like black wide mouths sucked the glass in and
spit the shards
On our backs we hunched in pajamas under the secretary
Glass crept out of your skin for months, you slept on your stomach
The ocean at the second balcony, the house sliding away sliding
But we made it
Yes

Where have they gone?
They'll need to see if it's real show it to someone
This duct tape rips the skin on my wrists.
My ankles are knotted cords.

Seven long months
Please, not this
We did everything we could for him: you awake all night, the doctors
All those tubes all those tubes stuck in his tiny body
And he'd look at us like
I wanted to nurse him I really wanted to nurse him and there was no reason
You were strong
We made the right choice the only choice
Yes

Coming back, listen,
Those two, the same
No, more than two, all the gravel crunching, at least three
Here they are
Yes
It's over then
Yes.

Prompt: This is what happened to you...

This is what happened to you; your phone rang at 6:02 am and woke you up. Then it rang again, two minutes later. You rolled out of bed and checked the caller ID: Mom. Then Dad. In 34 years since their divorce, this had never happened. You called Mom first. "Hi, Son. Something terrible has happened. Mack called to say that little Craig didn't wake up this morning. We're on our way up to Trenton now to see him."
It was The Call everyone fears.
You called Dad. "Well, it looks like he was sleeping with the boy. Mack got up to feed him at midnight, then the he fell asleep on Mack's chest. Sometime in the night, the boy rolled off him. When Mack woke up, he was pinned between Mack's arm and the corner of the futon mattress."
You called Mom back, "Is anyone with Mack?" "No." "I'm calling him and staying on the phone with him. I don't want him doing something awful to himself."
You called Mack. "Hey, man." "Hey, bud." "Well, I've done something awful, man. It's pretty bad. I killed my boy, Bill." "No, you didn't, Mack."

Mom said, "I've struggled with him all these years. First, it was the principal calling once a week to say Mack had shut everyone out of the bathroom during recess, or picked a fight with the class bully. I'd step into the living room and there he'd be, sitting on Hop's chest, choking him, Sam beet red going toward purple.
Your father would come home from his sales meetings and do nothing to help me. Half the time, he'd dismiss what I was saying. In retrospect, I realize he wanted to undercut me and any authority I had. Just to win favor in the situation. Favor from whom? Mack? Sam? He ruined them to me.
When Mack got up to be 13 or so, I'd finally had enough and divorced your father. Mack started drinking and smoking dope that first summer. He was sent off to the Marines instead of jail when they caught him with dope. Then rehab, after rehab. I begged the last place to keep him there until he sobered up. The man in charge told me Mack was the toughest case he'd ever seen. He stayed pretty clean for the last 5 years or so. Then she moved down here unannounced, he moved her in, and she got pregnant almost immediately. I'd held out hope for them and the little girl. Then the boy came along and she left like she did with the first one. Trenton is 50 miles away. I never did trust her. She knew he was drinking again. Why would she drop off the two kids with him if she knew the state he was in? And now here we are.
Driving up to Arkansas to bury my grandson in the family cemetery. A little boy only three months old. The prettiest child I'd ever seen. Just beautiful. But all I can think is that we have to keep Mack out of prison. Whatever we do, we have to keep him out of prison.
I've been through a lot with this boy. By 47 I hoped he'd have it together by now, but what more can I do than what I've done? He'll lose everything he's worked so hard for: the land, the house, maybe even his truck. How will he get back and forth to work, then? What will happen to the little girl? It breaks my heart to think of her up there in Arkansas repeating the same pattern we've been stuck in for so long. What can we do?

"Get your ass down here," Dad said on the phone, "You may be the only one who can help us."
I sat in meditation the whole plane ride down to Dallas. "
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
"Just remain upright," my inner voice said.
I saw a buoy far out in the ocean during a storm.
"Just remain upright."
I have to stay upright, not get pulled under by the riptide.
Be there for him. Stay with him. Don't leave his side.

So for five days I sat outside the therapist's office, hauled bag after bag of beer bottles to the dump, talked and listened and cried, then hid the guns from sight.

Prompt: A photograph from the 1960's of a woman in a bright floral dress seated, smoking, on a bright floral outdoor rocker

Hilda always wondered what people did without any color in their lives. Those people in the tract houses all painted the same shade of khaki from the outside and ecru after the front door. Were their dreams in a washed out palette, too?
Then there were the opposites: the dictocrats, the matchy-matchy's as she liked to call them. The ones who dressed all in black all the time. To avoid having to make a decision she supposed.
Why couldn't color run rampant? Why couldn't pattern scream from the heights, shake down the mysteries, reveal the hidden agendas of the soul?
Howard had always appreciated her bohemian vagaries. Her "nerve" he called it. Too bad he'd found the nerve to sleep with that tart and enact the free love he'd always yammered on about. At least he'd left her the Art, and the books, her bound beauties lined up in a row. Those and the 24 year-old Macaw were all she had left from her time with Howard.
Things grow, leaf, die and fall she thought. Trees, people, relationships. Yet, here she still stood, hot as fire on the inside, burning embers waiting to extinguish, or set aflame, or tear through the ideas of Romantics and misty-eyed fawns who showed up every fall for her Introduction to Modern Literature course.
How could these soft-shelled, pasty little figurines ever see the passion? What kept her going were the surprises. Even 40 years later she was still taken aback that her first assessments on the first day of class turned out to be only half right. In the still of the semester, on that rare occasion, a lone purple orchid bloomed from an otherwise wan little child and a beauty unbeknownst to anyone revealed itself.
Those moments, stark in their clarity, showed brightly. Their contrast bemused her, fueled her passion to continue on, to drudge through the oblique reasoning with yet another group of children. All for that moment of discovery, a revelation. A spark revealed.
Yes, that is what I'll say, Hilda thought, as she lit another cigarette. That's what I'll tell them when they ask how I've lasted this long. As the Deconstructionists have been abandoned and another Postmodern truism becomes the faddish catchphrase, my Beauty will throw them. "A Romantic?" they will think, "Old Mrs. Rubicon, a Romantic?"

Prompt: Why I Write

Why I write is beyond words. It's a scratch to the bottom of my soul, it's my unconscious leaking out of my body, it's stuff arriving from places that surprise me, images from the gods, dialogue from those I do not know (but somehow I know them), jokes and animals and achy breaky hearts marching across my beat up old notebook. It's powers that be from another plane crossing this metaphysical barrier to visit me.

Sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes I am locked in reality--flat, drab, confining, boring reality. At those points I am so grateful for 10 minute prompts, for words that evaporate as soon as they drop onto the page, words that get plowed under with the next prompt.

Alida Thacher, Friday Morning Workshop, Summer 2009