From the 2016 edition of The Waldorf Literary Review: Pockets

From the 2016 edition of The Waldorf Literary Review: Pockets
Photo by Dale Nibbe / Unsplash
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Pockets
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(Above: Audrey Sparks reading "Pockets")
             
I carry a stone in my pocket, tucked snuggly in the darkness with dimes, pennies, and quarters. Smooth and nearly flat on the bottom with a ridge on the top like a Colorado mountain range. A valley runs down one side exposing a course vein. I think of a gorge cut by the gnashing teeth of relentless rapids. Deep orange, yellow and brown dance with black and white across the terrain, blotches of color pressed against each other. The smooth sheen of the bottom feels soft against my fingertips when I reach to pay for a Snickers. Sometimes I palm the tiny weight, absently caressing the curves. The rougher rock of the exposed vein scrapes against my thumb. Confusion climbs in my mind at the opposite sensations: smooth and rough, soft and hard, simple and complicated, so closely confined within one tiny space.

I had a lover. We hid in pockets, behind black curtains where the sun would shine through the gap between the panels, a brilliant ray of light burning into cream colored paint. A pile of clothes: shirts, jeans, dress pants, a sock, pressed against each other on the floor. We soaked in the warmth of our fire, and with cotton pillows beneath our heads, dreamt of reaching the top of it all, leaving valleys with cutting rivers behind. Secret moments were hidden out of sight of harsh reality, but we couldn’t fight the current of the world pulling us apart. We held our breath, we kicked and we twisted, grasping for skin, but surfaced on opposite sides of the valley.

Audrey Sparks