Featured Image
|
|
|
Cowboy had his hat off and his boots off, one paintbrush
in his hand and one between his teeth. High on a wooden
scaffolding in his socks—clean socks, you'll note—he was
painting the roiling boiling clouds massed over the desert
during a summer monsoon.
Turned out, cowboy was a painter after all and his
paintings were as enormous as all outdoors, which was his
subject—all outdoors. Cowboy was a landscape painter and
he painted the Sonoran Desert like the Hudson River School
once painted nineteenth century America: romantically,
lyrically, mystically, and very very large.
Molly in the doorway, smiling. "I was looking for
Paula's room—do you sell these?"
No pause in his painting, cowboy spoke around his
brush, "You buyin' one?"
"I would. But there's not a wall in my house it would
fit."
No response.
"I took art courses in college."
No response.
"I thought I would be an artist."
No response.
Getting embarrassing here. You being pathetically
eager and obvious, him being—at best—hard of hearing.
But more like unimpressed and uninterested. As well as
too obviously busy.
How to back out without looking rejected? How to
slink away? Oh, for rollers on the soles of your feet,
silent
and swift.
Smile back in her pocket, Molly edging out the door.
He hasn't asked you, he won't ask you, but you will.
Why aren't you an artist?
—Walks Away Woman, Ki Longfellow, page 101
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sonoran Desert Beehive
|
|
Molly Brock backing up, slowly, and with intense care,
one step, two. Another buzz in her ear. In both ears. In
front of her face, not more than three feet away, a beehive.
A beehive like a sack of shining white laundry hanging
from a mesquite branch, a beehive so heavy, so loaded at
the bottom with golden honey, the branch it hung from
had split, might crash to the ground at any moment. And
when it did, it would take the hive with it, and when the
hive hit the ground, it would burst like an avocado with
golden flesh—and out would pour unutterable sweetness
and unutterable horror.
From inside the hive, an ominous buzzing. Molly
backing into Brewster.
"Move, Brue. Please."
— Walks Away Woman, Ki Longfellow, page 138
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Buy Kindle version...
Buy Barnes & Noble eBook version...
