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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 3306 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Lock and Towpath E. V. Brooks (lia) She keeps the pot boiling low over the fire. Stirs coriander with a wooden spoon until remnants follow black beams along the ceiling, under eaves, far across Dorney Reach. She tips her head to the sound. They come-- running along the banks of the canal like stags that flee electric storms. She turns the cloth, hides the stains with jugs and mats, brings the pot to the table with her skirt hem. The door opens to five children, each with the stains of a man she could never love. They fill chairs, tear at bread the way rats had, four days after Mathew fell from the footbridge. Again, the door. A man. Children are quiet as logs spit back the damp. He coughs, taps a silver candlestick with an ugly finger. She stares into the pot, watches the Nile twist blue-green amongst dripping. He takes the head seat. She feels drunken eyes on her skin, her hair, like brown tar seeping from severed alder limbs. She knows what he wants. She lifts the ladle. Rust flakes in her hand as she divides the Nile into white bowls, one by one. |
